Chapters Starlight Fixes Everything Else
Starlight Fixes Fallout Equestria Part 1
Once again being spat out by the old swirly portal, I gently landed on the now solid surface of the cutie map. As soon as I opened my eyes, I was met with a sight I thought impossible. After rubbing some dust out of my eyes and blinking several times, my fears were confirmed.
"No... no no no no no NO! Not again! What the buck map? Why did you send me back here?!" I demanded of the crystal table beneath my hooves. However, looking down at it, I noticed something off. Rather, I noticed the map was the same as before I embarked on my journey. It wasn't the flat wasteland Twilight showed me.
Taking a closer look at my surroundings, I noticed some standing structures in Ponyville nearby. The main issue being that most were dilapidated or totally collapsed. Checking the map again, I confirmed Fluttershy was still in what I'm assuming is the ruins of Manehattan. In any case, I had my destination. With any luck, I wouldn't run into another psychopath version of my friend.
As I preformed my usual safety check spells, I noticed a few oddities. Mainly, a few hostile entities crawling on the ground near the table map. Looking around, I saw a bunch of giant bugs skittering and probing their surroundings. "Nope! Nope nope nope nope nope!" Every word was punctuated with a zap of my horn at the various creatures that seemed oddly resistant to magic.
"What the buck? Fine! Buck this, I'm out!" With that, I lifted in the air and flew off towards my destination. As I soared over a wasteland that I assumed wasn't created by my shenanigans, my confusion only grew. I first noticed various patches of clouds just sticking around the needle like towers, while the rest of the sky was clear. "Who the buck made this weather schedule?"
Then I heard it. A sound like thunder, but coming from below me. A second later, I heard it again. Looking down, I noticed a group of ponies pulling a cart and... pointing some metal sticks at... what were those things? Diving down to get a closer look, I noticed the sound and flashes of light coming from those metal sticks. Said metal boom sticks are being pointed at, "giant scorpions?"
Landing nearby, I was quick to throw up a magic shield over the caravan which managed to keep the remaining creatures at bay. Satisfied that the ponies were now safe, I decided to take proper stock of the situation. Looking back to the cart and ponies I was met with various expressions of confusion, fear, and... anger?
Not wanting to aggravate anypony further than they were already, I decided introductions were in order. "Hi there, my name is Starlight Glimmer, who are you?"
"What kind of alicorn are ya? Never seen one with your colors before, not to mention how tiny ya are," said a grimy looking stallion. At first glance I just thought he had brown fur and a black mane, but on closer inspection, it could easily just be layers of dirt. I couldn't help but wonder, when was the last time these ponies took a bath?
"Are you one of them alicorns following Velvet, or are ya still working fer the Red Eye loyalist cult?" A lighter colored mare demanded, pointing her metal stick at my head with her hooves. Now that I was up close and personal with it, I could see it was actually a hollow tube. It reminded me of a miniature version of Pinkie Pie's party cannon, except I doubted this would spray out harmless confetti.
"Uh," was my incredibly well articulated response. When the mare with the mini cannon pumped something near the base, I got the distinct feeling I should say more words before I found out what that boom stick could do. "I'm the princess of time and I came here from another timeline where none of this happened, and life is actually really peaceful for the most part and on a mission from the tree of harmony to fix various parallel timelines and save as many ponies as I can!" I had to pant before catching my breath and continued.
"I need to find Fluttershy because that's what the cutie map said, so I need to help her and maybe also go back in time to prevent whatever caused all this so if you could please lower your boom stick I'll be on my way to what's left of Manehattan!" I hoped my smile didn't look too similar to a rictus grin while sweat poured down my face. I might be immortal, but I didn't want to test the limits on that any time soon.
With the boom stick still pointed at me the the dirty stallion spoke up. "I didn't catch half of what you just said, and the parts I did catch sound impossible. I don't know if you're just a mentally challenged alicorn, lying, or what. What I do know is there's tons of rad scorpions on the other side of that magic shield of yours."
Huh, so that's what those are, good to know, I mused before returning my attention to the pony not threatening my life.
"I may not believe you, but if you really want to save ponies, how about getting rid of those monsters for us?" His gaze looked more pleading than threatening at this point. I might as well help out if nothing else than to get the boom stick out of my face.
"Okay, I can probably do that, just... gimme a sec," I said before slowly turning my back to the ponies. As soon as I wasn't looking, the mare shot me in the ass! It was like being stabbed with dozens of red hot needles! On top of that, my ear drums just shattered! "Fuck! That fucking hurts! Luna damn it!" Turning around and glaring at the mare with the shotgun, I lit up an over glow on my horn to heal myself while glaring daggers. "I'm still gonna help you, but afterwards, I'm confiscating that boom stick!"
"It's called a shotgun dumbass!" A little filly shouted from inside the cart full of junk.
Ignoring the snide comment while also filing away that information for the future, I focused on the larger outer shield. Bending the turquoise barrier out of shape, I inverted the bubble, sweeping up all the rad scorpions into their own bubble. Next, I started shrinking the magic barrier, forcing all the scorpions into a smaller and smaller hemisphere until they were clumped up and snapping at each other.
Then I added another hemisphere to the shield, holding a now floating bubble of chitin and rage. Levitating the ball as high as possible, I took off myself to keep it in my eye sight. Once the ball had reached the half way point to the cloud layer, I threw it back down to the ground with as much force as I could manage. At the last second I released my magic and the monsters splattered within a newly formed crater in a heap of goo and chitin.
Satisfied with my work, I flew back down to the now stunned caravan, only slightly splattered with rad scorpion guts. Before any of the adults could speak up, the filly from before stood up and belted out, "that was totally wicked!" Even after receiving an admonishing glare from the pony pulling the cart, her face was total elation.
Before any of them could fully recover, I took the gun that shot her before examining it within the protection of my own personal magic bubble. "Huh, this actually doesn't look anything like a party cannon," I said, levitating the gun around haphazardly, occasionally causing some of the ponies to duck in fear of being shot. "Hey, how does this thing work anyway?"
"You point the metal bit at the pony or thing you wanna kill, and pull the little trigger," said the previous owner of the gun as she cowered with her hooves above her head.
I balked at that. "Kill? Why would I want to kill ponies! Bugs, sure but ponies?"
"Hey! If some nasty raiders or slavers point a gun at me, they lost the right to live!" Looking back at the ponies, I took notice of another mare in the group who had spoken up. "I don't know who the buck you are or why the buck you're here, but if half the shit you told us is true, you have no idea what we've been through! Try living in this wasteland for years, struggling just to survive, only to have your whole family killed in front of your eyes by sick cannibalistic monsters and then come to us about moral high grounds!"
I was stunned speechless. Was it really that bad here? How long has this wasteland been here? Ugh, too many questions, I got to focus. "Be that as it may, I'm here to fix everything, it's kinda my thing, and while this isn't my first rodeo, it is probably the biggest," I admitted. "Still, I'm confident I can fix all this. I just need to find Fluttershy first."
"Well, I guess for saving us from those bugs, we could help you out a bit," the lead stallion offered. "Last I heard from DJ-Pon-3, she was being kept safe in Tenpony Tower, which as you could probably guess is in Manehatten. You could most likely get in if you said you were working with Velvet Remedy, but they might just let you in regardless. I'm not sure about their new policies on alicorns, but I'm sure with your crazy magic powers you could figure something out."
"Okay, how about a crash course on this shotgun? Something more detailed than 'point at target'?" I asked, pointing the gun to the ground, still within my personal bubble.
"Only point it at something you're willing to shoot or kill, always treat every gun like it's loaded, don't even think about pulling the trigger until you're ready to shoot," the filly blurted out, much to my surprise. "The little button near the trigger is the safety. If it's on, the gun won't fire, but you still gotta treat it like safety is off at all times unless you wanna get yourself or somepony else hurt.
"Also, You load it with plastic cases full of gun powder, and little lead pellets. Pump it to eject the spent shells and load a new one, when you run out, reload. Oh, and don't bring a knife to a gun fight," the filly finished with a proud smile.
"Huh, thanks kid. I'll keep all that in mind," I replied as I stowed the shot gun in my saddle bags of holding. "Try not to shoot any other ponies who don't deserve it." With a quick wave of my hoof, I shot back up in the air and continued on my way to Manehattan. Despite hearing sounds of gun shots periodically throughout my flight, I resolved to stay out of any other conflicts. I can't get bogged down with every little problem of these ponies who are probably gonna end up never being born.
"Huh, where did that thought come from?" I asked myself. "I mean it's true but, should a princess be thinking like that? Even if they won't exist, shouldn't I try to reduce the suffering of as many creatures as possible?" Stopping every time somepony looks to be in trouble is just delaying your mission to save the whole world. If we don't hurry, Fluttershy could die, kill somepony, or lose her sanity! "But I'm the princess of time! I don't have to rush anything! Hay, I could trot there on foot and solve every problem I come across then just go back in time once I arrive, so to an outside perspective the trip is instantaneous!"
"Uh, excuse me miss, but... who are you talking to?" A voice from above asked in a concerned tone.
"I'm having a moral debate with myself, what's it to ya!" I shot back before I blinked in confusion. "Wait, who said that?"
"Up here," the same voice replied before I looked up. Flying above me was a pale lilac pegasus filly with a strawberry blonde mane. "Hi, I'm Bunny Kicker, what's your name?"
"I'm sorry, did you just say your name is Bunny Kicker?" I asked incredulously, trying to understand why any parent would be so cruel to their foal. Not wanting to crane my head or try flying upside down like Rainbow Dash, I just flew up to meet the filly at her elevation just below the cloud layer.
"Yuppers! So, why were ya talking to yourself?" Bunny asked, tilting her head slightly.
"It's not important, mostly just dumb grown up stuff. Plus, I'm kinda bored," I admitted.
"Huh, when I'm bored I just talk to my imaginary friend. Why don't you have an imaginary friend?"
It was at this time I thought to ask a more pressing question. "Bunny, where are your parents?"
"Oh, they're back at the cloud farm. Papa said I can't leave the cloud cover, but he didn't say I couldn't talk to ponies below the clouds!" Bunny beamed at me like she just outsmarted a sphinx.
Taking stock of my surroundings I frowned slightly. "Huh, well the cloud cover is ending soon, and I still have a while to go. You better head back home now," I said, a bit disappointed.
"Wait, you didn't tell me your name yet!" Bunny insisted.
"Oh, I'm Starlight Glimmer," I introduced myself before an idea struck me. "Hey Bunny, can you keep a secret?" I asked with a mischievous grin.
"Oh! Totally! I'm the best at secrets! I promise I won't tell anypony!" Bunny claimed, puffing her chest out in pride.
Giggling a bit at the filly's antics, I continued, "Okay, just between you and me, I'm actually a princess from another world sent here to fix things and save ponies."
"Wow! I thought alicorns were just monsters from the surface, but you're really nice! I can't wait to tell my sister about you!" Bunny shouted, immediately forgetting her pledge to keep her secret. "Bye princess, come visit again some time!"
As the filly flew back above the clouds, I giggled as I imagined the kind of confusion she would cause her family upon relaying the days events. Moments later, I flew out from the cover of one of the cloud islands. The warm sun bathed my outstretched wings in its golden glow and soothing warmth. Deciding to check out life above the clouds, I rose above the fluffy islands as I continued my flight north east.
What I saw next almost made me fall out of the sky in shock. "Celestia and Luna fuck me gently with a chainsaw," I breathed out as my jaw fell open. Before my eyes, the sun and moon were in the sky, at the same time! Needing a minute to process this, I glided down to the nearest cloud island and just... stared at the moon just cresting over the horizon as the sun was about an hour past high noon.
I can't be sure how long I just stared at the sky, slack jawed. I just know the moon had crept a few degrees further towards its zenith before I was snapped out of my reverie. Before me stood a confused looking pegasus timidly pointing two saddle mounted guns at me. "L-listen up! T-this here is enclave territory! So either fly somewhere else, or get shot!"
While this nervous light grey mare wasn't super intimidating, her large guns were. "S-sorry," I replied as I blinked away my confusion at the whole situation. "I've just never seen the moon during the day before."
That seemed to surprise the gun toting pony. "Really? Well, I guess not all alicorns managed to fly up this high before. In any case, you can gawk at it from some other cloud, or down on the surface! Otherwise, you got ten second to scram before I start shooting!"
Once I was fully in control of my mental functions, I decided I'd rather not be riddled with whatever came out of those long guns. "Hear ya loud and clear!" I announced before teleporting a few pony lengths directly down and opening my wings to fly as far away from there as I could.
The rest of my journey was rather uneventful. Sure there were some odd skirmishes here and there, but for the most part they seemed to resolve themselves quickly. Looks like I won our little debate earlier, my brain nagged me. "Yeah, so what? I'm focusing on my mission, can you shut up now?" Did you just tell yourself to shut up? "I don't know, did I? Are you me? or are you some other crazy horse shit I have to deal with in this Luna forsaken wasteland?"
I probably would have kept up that little line of questioning if an inequine screech didn't distract me. Looking down, I noticed I was flying above various piles of rubble and hollow buildings. "Is this Manehatten? Also, what was that... sound," I trailed off as I caught sight of at least a dozen giant bat creatures beneath me swarming around some elevated rail road.
Bringing up my trusty bubble shield, I dived down to see what the fuss was about. As I got closer, I couldn't help but notice one of the giant bats grabbing a pony, biting through what looked like leather barding, and sucking the pony dry in the blink of an eye. It was at this point I remembered I still had that shot gun and was itching to try it out.
As I pulled out the gun, I checked the safety was disengaged before I pointed the hollow barrel at the swarm and pulled the trigger. As the ringing in my ears died down, I noticed the bat creatures weren't particularly bothered, but some of them disengaged from the flock to check out the noise. Upon noticing the floating light blue orb in the sky, they shrieked again and the rest of the bats switched targets.
Before any of them could converge on my location, I once again halted the flow of time. However, this time felt different; the magic was more difficult to summon, and it took more effort to maintain the spell. Regardless, I kept it up as I readied my next shot at point blank range to the head of one of the nearest bats. It was a fascinating sight to see the brains of a monster being splattered while its body is trapped in temporal stasis.
After using up all my bullets, I flew down to the spot on the rail bridge the bats were swarming to find a band of ponies wearing... what looked to be bondage gear with extra spikes. Putting up a large hemisphere shield around all of us, I resumed time, much to the confusion of the ponies around me. "Hi there, name's Starlight Glimmer, princess of time. Want some help killing these monsters?"
In response, a yellow earth pony with a... flaming skull cutie mark? In any case, she was the one to address me. "We're not joining your dumb cult! Fuck off!"
So much for gratitude, I thought with a roll of my eyes. "I'm not in a cult! anymore... I just got here, and I'm trying to help you ponies not die from giant bat monsters! By all means though, feel free to die to those things if you really don't want my help! Excuse me for not wanting to see ponies die!"
For my troubles, I was shot, again! Fucking again! "If you wanna help us, then die and let us get a taste of alicorn meat!" A few other ponies in this little herd seemed to perk up at that. Some even seemed to start drooling.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me. I saved a band of cannibals," I mumbled into my hoof as it connected to my face. While the creatures pretending to be ponies tried getting another shot off, I released the large group shield before generating a small personal bubble once again as I used my magic to pull out whatever they shot into my flank. "Fuck! Celestia's flaming teats on a stick that hurts!"
While the healing magic helped dull the pain as the projectile was ejected, it was slow work, and the oddly shaped object kept scraping along the entry wound. By the time it popped out and my latest hole was patched up, I once again took stock of my situation. All around me were shriveled husks of dried flesh barely holding onto bones.
"Why did you have to shoot me! Why did you have to be cannibals!? I just wanted to save some ponies from this nightmare! Fuck!" As I stood there cursing their deaths, I once again reared my ugly head. Did you forget they'll cease to exist after this? Just move on and don't think about it. Why even feel bad anyway? They were psychopathic cannibals. "SHUT! UP!"
The constant scratching and screeching from the bat monsters on the other side of my barrier barely registered in my mind. The screams from the cannibals before they were drained of all bodily fluids by the swarm, hardly a blip on my radar. All else was drowned out by my racing heart and short panicked breaths. I don't know how long I stayed there. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours. All I could do was keep that magic shield going, just because I was doing that before the panic set in
"Hello," a voice in my head said... except it wasn't my voice this time. "Are you lost? We've never met one like you before." I didn't respond. I was either going insane, or some telepathic and sentient monster just showed up. I might need to move soon if I don't want to test out my immortality. Fuck, I just wanted to avoid that pain again.
Keeping my eyes clenched tight, I put more power into my shield spell. In response, the voice spoke again. "We mean you no harm. We've cleared out the Bloodwings, if that's what you were worried about. It looks like your friends here weren't as lucky as yourself tho-."
"THEY WEREN'T MY FRIENDS! THEY WANTED TO EAT ME! " I bellowed in the royal Canterlot voice, much to the shock of whatever was outside.
After what felt like an eternity, it spoke again in my head"We are truly sorry you had to go through such a thing."
That got me to open my eyes. Glaring up at... were those alicorns? Doesn't matter. "That's just the thing! I didn't have to! I didn't have to do a lot of things in this hell hole! The only thing I need to do is find Fluttershy, figure out what's wrong with her, probably also find out what the buck went wrong to cause this wasteland, and fix it!" Even though every alicorn outside my weakening shield spell was at least twice my height, they all cowered back as if afraid.
"You seek the minister of peace? What business do you have with her?" All of the alicorns exchanged furtive glances before returning their attention to me.
Okay Starlight, try to calm down. These weird ponies apparently know Fluttershy. Just play nice, and if they try to kill you... don't think about that now. As I collected my thoughts and preformed Twilight's breathing exercises to calm my ass, I finally responded. "Alright, pay attention because I hate having to repeat myself. I'm-"
"An interloper from another timeline," the alicorn closest to me spoke aloud. That threw me off a bit, but if they believed me, that saves me a headache pf explaining. "You're here on behalf of the primordial force of nature known as Harmony to learn of new worlds, how they diverged from their design, and repair any damaged you can manage."
I was a bit shocked, but I guess if they can talk in my mind, they can also read it. "I guess that saves me the time of explaining myself," I said, finally relaxing my scowl, and releasing my spell. "So, now that you know I'm here to help, let's go see Flutter butters and fix this mes!"
Once again, the alicorns looked around at each other as if having a silent discussion. Eventually a purple alicorn spoke. "We can take you to her, but she may not be who you wish to find."
"As long as she isn't secretly a serial killer, or personally overseas the sacrifice of dozens of foals a year in an unholy mechanical abomination, I'm sure I can handle her." I wasn't sure why the alicorns around me looked so shocked. Maybe they couldn't imagine such a kind mare capable of something like that. Maybe they were afraid of what I would do if she was worse than that. In any case, the next thing I knew I was standing inside some building that looked like a mix between the Ponyville market and Canterlot castle.
"Welcome to Tenpony Tower Starlight Glimmer." Only one of the purple alicorns stood next to me. Weather they didn't want to make a scene, or the others had more work to do outside, I only really needed one of them to guide me.
"So, where's Fluttershy?" While this place looked interesting, my patience for distractions was growing thin.
"The minister is currently... indisposed. If you'll follow me, I shall take you to her quarters." Without another word, my alicorn guide started walking, and I followed her. I just wish she'd pick up her speed , but it seems as though she was determined to keep a slow and steady pace. By all the glares and gasps around us, one would think she'd want to get out of sight as quickly as possible.
"Any chance we could speed this up, uh... what was your name again?" I couldn't tell if she told me yet. I know she knows my name, but what do I call her other than 'the purple one'?
"You can call me Bubble Berry. At least that was my name before the goddess got her hooves on me, Bubble Berry told me in my mind. That will never not be freaky.
"Uh, nice to meet you Bubble Berry... can you maybe stop reading my mind though?" Seriously, it's like these alicorns never heard of privacy.
"We apologize, but we are not actively reading your thoughts. When you speak in your mind, we can hear you as clearly as if you spoke aloud. We can tell you are not used to this, and we don't know why exactly but you seem to have taken on the properties of our kind. It is also likely you have inherited our trait of empowerment and regeneration when exposed to magical radiation, but you could just as easily be as weak to the wasteland as the average pony."
"Well, that makes about as much sense as anything else I've seen in this world." Although, it would be nice if I could get a power boost from whatever magic radiation is.
"All will be explained in due time," Bubble Berry told me as they gestured to a plain wooden door. "We have arrived. Please wait inside, the minister will arrive shortly. However, you must remember she isn't the mare you think she is. Be gentle and patient with her, and know if any harm comes to her..." Bubble trailed off, staring right into my soul. The implicit threat was received loud and clear. Even with my time manipulation spells, I didn't have eyes in the back of my head.
As the door opened in front of me, I was greeted with the sight of a rather plain apartment. It wasn't cramped or anything, but it was a far cry from Fluttershy's cottage back home. As soon as I stepped through, the door closed behind me. "Well, I guess all that's left to do is wait," I sighed, before I remembered something. I'm a mother-bucking time traveler! Waiting is for plebs.
With that thought in mind, I settled down on a nearby sofa that looked like it had seen better days, but was still comfy. As soon as I was settled, I began casting my fast forward spell before I remembered how jarring it can be to see me pop out of nowhere. With that in mind, I added on an alarm of sorts. The spell would disengage the moment the door handle began to turn so as to not startle Fluttershy assuming she'd be expecting me to be here before she comes in.
Having all that set up, I let the spell activate while I laid on my side to relax. It actually took a quite a while for her to show up. I could only imagine how bored I would be sitting around in real time. In any case, the door handle started moving and my spell automatically fizzled out, revealing my presence on the sofa with a mild popping sound.
As the door slowly creaked open, it revealed a single turquoise eye peaking in and scanning the room. It eventually landed on me and the pupils dilated before relaxing a moment later. Slowly, the door was gently swung open to reveal... Fluttershy. Much older than my Fluttershy if the streaks of white in her otherwise pink mane were any indication. Other than her shorter mane style though, she looked exactly the same. No wrinkles or saggy skin like Granny Smith, no walker to help her get around, though I could tell she wasn't in the best physical shape. I had to wonder just how old she really was.
"The minister of peace has arrived," the audible voice of Bubble Berry came from outside the door before Fluttershy made her way inside and closed the door behind her. Actually hearing their voice with my ears threw me for a loop for a moment. Something about it felt unnatural.
"I really wish they would stop calling me that," Fluttershy sighed, exasperated at the words of the alicorn.
"Why not just tell them that?" I asked without thinking. The next thing I knew, the butter yellow pegasus looked to be on the verge of a panic attack. She clenched her eyes shut as her wings unfurled and hugged her sides... no, they were holding something. Her saddle bags? It took a moment before she took some deep breaths and started to calm down.
"I can't do that," she said, barely above a whisper, cringing as if in pain. "Listen, I know you're here for something important. Berry told me a bit about it, but please... I can't help you right now." She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. As she opened her eyes, our gazes met, and I knew what to do.
I've seen my Fluttershy like this before, I've seen Rainbow Dash and Twilight help her through this kind of thing. Though I could tell this was more severe than her usual issues of a pet butterfly dying, she still needed the same comfort. Without another word, I gently glided over to her side, draped a wing over her, held her head in my hooves as I stroked her mane and whispered in her ear. "It's gonna be alright 'shy. You're too awesome to let this beat you. But just remember I'm here for ya no matter what. I'd never leave my friend hanging."
As soon as I finished speaking, she was asleep in my hooves. Not wanting to disturb her, I levitated the sleeping pegasus to the only other room in the apartment. After I removed her saddle bags, I deposited them on the night stand, and tucked her in bed. Just as I was about to leave though, I could hear a faint whimper that made me giggle a bit.
It seems that no matter what, Fluttershy is still Fluttershy, I thought as I made my way back to the bed. Slipping in behind her, I laid on my side and once again wrapped a wing around her. As I began to drift off, I heard her mutter something in her sleep.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Rainbow..."
Footnote: Maximum Level Reached
Author's Note
Fallout Equestria was written by Kkat. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend it. Even though I'm just throwing out spoilers left and right, the journey of reading it is still worth it.
Most writers appreciate feedback.
Here's a link to the original storyhttps://www.fimfiction.net/story/119190/fallout-equestria
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
"Harrumph!" Trixie harrumphed. "Princess Twilight Sparkle's coronation had way more fanfare than yours," Trixie grumbled. "You're literally the princess of time , how did they not demand all of Equestria and beyond come to pay lip service?" she demanded.
"Maybe because I asked them to keep it as small as possible while still spreading the word?" Starlight offered. "I didn't want to make a big deal of it Trix, I know how that goes, and let me assure you it doesn't go well," she insisted.
"Oh... right, Trixie guesses Trixie should have known you already knew what would happen," Trixie admitted sheepishly. "Do you just know everything now?"
"No, I only know what I've seen, although time related spells have gotten a lot easier to use now that I have alicorn magic!" Starlight boasted. "But for real, I'm not an infallible goddess. Especially considering how many of those friendship lessons I had to redo to keep the timeline stable. I still don't know what I was thinking, giving Rainbow that unholy abomination. It's way more sensible to just have a tortoise and a bird of prey!"
"Yeah, but it made for a funny story at least," Trixie replied, giggling at the scenario her filly friend had described. "But hey, in the end it was worth it right? Now you got those sweet wings... even if you could basically fly on your own before."
"Well now I don't have to expend any magic to fly, or walk on clouds, plus I'm way stronger now!" Starlight jumped and bucked the air behind her in demonstration. "Plus now I'm immortal! Combined with my time magic, there's basically no limit to what I can do!"
"Yeah, great, good for you..." Trixie trailed off visibly upset.
"Trix, what's wro-" at that moment, Starlight mentally slapped herself while physically face hoofing. She wished she could just redo that bit of the conversation. As if time itself was listening to her thoughts, when she lifted her hoof Trixie and herself were a bit further away from the castle of friendship than they had been.
Before she knew it, Trixie was repeating herself, "even if you could basically fly on your own before." Starlight wasn't about to squander this opportunity.
"Yeah, but now I have access to alicorn magic, plus with my specialty in time magic means I can easily use age spells to keep a certain somepony eternally young," Starlight said giving Trixie a wink and a wiggle of her eye brows. Trixie visibly perked up at this, signalling to Starlight that she managed to not put her hoof in her mouth this time.
Before either of them could get another word in, Starlight felt a warm sensation in her flanks before Trixie pointed out her glowing cutie mark. "Uh Starlight? Is that supposed to keep happening?" Trixie asked a tinge of annoyance in her voice.
"I mean, if the map calls, you answer," Starlight said before teleporting both of them to the Cutie MapTM. What greeted them upon arrival was so out of left field it should have shocked them both to their cores. However, surviving all the crazy world threatening events of the past few years, then going back to prevent all those things from happening, tends to get the panic volume turned down on stuff like this.
"What am I even looking at here?" Trixie deadpanned, not even bothering to speak in the third person. What laid before them was the holographic map of Equestria they were familiar with, except there was more than one of them. In fact, as they moved around the table, it looked like various versions of the map started to disappear, appear, or morph from one to the next. Out of curiosity, Trixie tried waving her hoof around the top of the table. This caused various holograms to cycle through at a rapid pace.
"Hold on, where's my cutie mark? It usually shows up on the map orbiting around where it wants me to go," Starlight mused out loud. Before she was even done talking, the map rapidly cycled through countless configurations until all the jumbled floating variations coalesced into a single standard looking map. As soon as it stabilized, a hologram of her cutie mark jumped from her flanks and zipped toward the map before it rested above Ponyville and started spiraling down to the simulacrum of sugar cube corner before circling the building. At the same time, a copy of Pinkie's cutie mark began to rise from the bakery, resting in the center of Starlight's cutie mark orbit.
"Huh, that's a new one," said Pinkie from right behind Starlight.
"Gah! Pinkie, we talked about this! Personal space, remember?" Starlight blurted, before she realized Pinkie's flank wasn't glowing like her own.
"Yeah, I know, it's weird. I didn't get a glowing cutie mark, but I did get a Pinkie Sense that means I was summoned. I usually just ignore it because it's like, no duh Pinkie Sense, I already have a glowing flank to tell me where to go, but this time I got the sense without the glow so I was like 'huh, maybe that's why I get a sense for it every time', but I was just at Sugar-Cube Corner, and there wasn't any friendship problems there, so I cam here and then I snuck up on you as a prank an you were like-" a baby blue hoof made its way into Pinkie's mouth to shut her up.
"Thank you Trixie, but I've got it from here," Starlight said as Trixie removed her hoof. "Okay, let's eliminate the most likely suspects first." Preparing her magic for a slew of spells, her horn charged up with her turquoise aura before first casting a spell, removing any illusions on herself and the castle of friendship.
Seeing that her cutie mark was still glowing and present on the map, Starlight set off a spell to summon discord. While she didn't actually have any means to control him any more than Twilight, she did work out a sort of request alarm to tell Discord where and when she was, and the level of urgency. To everypony's surprise save for Pinkie, Discord actually showed up for a moderate level summons. "You rang?" Discord asked, having manifested from the void in a flash of light.
"Discord, did you do something to the map table again? It's acting up, and I need to know if its a legitimate summons," Starlight demanded, only mildly annoyed at her near omnipotent friend.
"Weeeelllll..." Discord dragged out, examining the map table by expanding his eye balls to reach out like pseudopods to touch the crystal surface directly. Popping his eyes back in their sockets, he turned his head, just his head, to face Starlight directly with what looked like shrunken eye balls in expanded and sunken sockets. In an uncharacteristically deadly serious tone he uttered, "it's real," before grabbing Pinkie Pie and vanishing once again.
"Okaaaaay..." Starlight said, utterly dumbfounded. Turning to Trixie she asked, "have you ever seen him do that before?"
Without giving Trixie time to answer, Discord was back in a flash. "So, I was going to give you a long and boring exposition dump out of courtesy for a fellow time hopper, but then I decided it would be much more entertaining to just throw you into the deep end!" Discord announced, summoning a mini Starlight next to a mini pool before a mini discord pushed her in.
"What?" Was all Starlight could think to say to that.
"Look, just focus your timey whimey magic on the map table and find out for yourself what the map wants," Discord insisted, gently nudging Starlight toward the table. "Just remember two things Starlight," he said dropping back into his serious voice. "First, be careful, second, it isn't your Equestria." With that, his mirthful, almost predatory grin returned. "Good luck!" he shouted before de-manifesting again. "You're gonna need it...." echoed throughout the room from everywhere and nowhere.
"Well, that wasn't ominous at all," Trixie commented, pulling Starlight out of her stupor.
"Yeah, well I guess if this is a legitimate quest, I should answer it." Starlight tried to not let her apprehension show on in her voice, but her face was a wreck of nerves.
Before her filly friend could devolve into a Twilight level freak out, Trixie locked their lips together until she felt her lover calm down. Disconnecting herself she asked, "better?"
"Yeah, sorry about that. I'm sure I'll be fine, the map wouldn't send me on a suicide mission or anything right?" Starlight asked, mostly trying to soothe her own fears more than explain her situation.
"That wouldn't be very harmonious would it?" Trixie asked, using sarcasm to defuse the tension. "Look, if things get too hot to handle, just teleport back here or something. Or use some other time powers! Remember, you're an alicorn, you can face anything this map can dish your way!" Trixie proclaimed with utter confidence.
Starlight couldn't help but allow some of that confidence to seep into herself. "You're right Trix! I can do this! I'll be back before you know it," Starlight said, preparing a fairly generic time manipulation spell to cast at the table map. Releasing her will on the spell, the powers of harmony took over, creating a swirling vortex in the map which Starlight allowed to suck her in.
About five seconds later, Trixie shrugged and started making her way out of the room when the vortex appeared again, only to spit out Starlight. The mare in question had a million hoof stare, and stood slack jawed for just a moment before breaking down crying.
Trixie was on Starlight in an instant, cuddling, shushing, and generally comforting her as much as possible. "It's okay Glimmy, I got you," she gently cooed as she placed gentle kisses along her muzzle and neck. Once Starlight seemed to be done crying Trixie finally asked, "wanna talk about it?"
"No," Starlight answered barely above a whisper, "at least not yet, but I need to see Pinkie's basement." This left Trixie confused, but instead of asking questions without a filter, she just stayed there, holding her broken fillyfriend, and offered her as much comfort as possible.
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
As a greenish purple time vortex spit out the princess of time onto an out of place crystal map table in the middle of an open field, Starlight Glimmer was given a glimpse into how Twilight must have felt all those years ago trying to stop various unsanctioned time shenanigans. Regaining her bearings, Starlight cleared the area of debris and dust with an expanding shield spell, and simultaneously casting a detection spell to spot any potential hostile entities. After hearing horror stories from Twilight, she didn't want to take any chances.
Realizing she was totally alone, Starlight let out a breath before she tried to make out her surroundings. "Okay Glim-Glam, first order of business, recon," Starlight said to herself, switching back to her confident, aloof, and mysterious time traveler persona. With another deep breath in and out, she completed her little ritual.
Taking stock of her surroundings she saw the map table she was standing on was still working, if lacking an entire castle to surround it. Her cutie mark was still orbiting around Sugar Cube Corner, but Pinkie Pie's had moved. It seemed to be moving towards her current location, but the pace seemed a bit... off. It worried Starlight, like some primitive instinct was warning her of a stalking predator. It gave her the impression this version of Pinkie wasn't the same as the one she knew and tolerated.
Deciding it would be best to be proactive, Starlight decided to meet Pinkie half way. At least she could try to play off being a new pony in town. On that note, Glim-Glam cast an illusion spell on herself, hiding her wings. Who knew how other ponies would react to a new alicorn out of the blue.
Before she could say 'butterscotch', a familiar, yet slightly muted pink party pony came bounding toward her with a disturbingly wide smile plastered on her face. Despite how impossible it should have been, her smile seemed to grow even bigger once she caught sight of the pinkish purple mare. Increasing her pace from a trot to a gallop, Pinkie sped towards her goal before jumping into what looked like a fighting stance, one hoof drawn back behind her head, preparing to strike. At the last second, Starlight threw up a front facing reinforced shield.
Pinkie punched her hoof into the shield, leaving a sizable dent in the magic construct before it cracked and shattered. Maintaining her ever present mania after dropping to the ground, she slowly turned her head up to look Starlight in the eyes. Something about her pupils just screamed wrongness, and being able to see her up close, Starlight couldn't help but notice Pinkie's mane was completely flat. "Haven't seen you around town friend , you must be new," she said as if she hadn't just tried punching Starlight's skull into pulp.
"Hehe, yeah... I, uh, was just passing through," Starlight stammered out. "I'm-"
"Starlight Glimmer, right?" Pinkie interrupted. "I'm Pinkie Pie, and I know all about you and your little town. I was planning on making a visit soon, but I guess you decided to come visit me instead, how lucky !"
"Sure, let's go with that!" Starlight shot back, recovering her wits. This interaction hadn't gone to plan at all, but the situation was still salvageable. "Say, do ya think you could point me in the direction of a place to get some food? I'm famished after a long journey from my last rest stop."
As predicted, Pinkie perked up at the mention of food. "Sure! Follow me, I'll take you to my bakery, Sugar Cube Corner!"
Her bakery? I thought the cakes ran the bakery. Maybe this is one of those timeline differences, Starlight thought to herself, all while trying to keep a calm exterior. "How long have you been managing your own bakery, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Oh, ever since the previous owners passed away, they were like a second pair of parents to me," Pinkie said, slightly deflating as she did so. "But at least I have help from their kids! I helped raise the cake twins since their birth. I'm like their cool aunt, and I couldn't ask for better helpers!" Speaking of her young charges seemed to reinvigorate the pink pony to the point she started happily bouncing.
"Well, it's good to hear you got some great help. Running a bakery sounds like a lot of work," Starlight offered, wanting to get to the bottom of the issue as soon as possible. Did the death of the Cakes set Pinkie off some how?
After exchanging a bit more small talk, Starlight noticed something unsettling about the sky. However, not wanting to come across as suspicious, she tried wording her concern as neutrally as possible. "Does this town not have a weather pony to keep the skies clear?"
"Oh, we do, but Blossomforth isn't as fast as Dashie used to be," Pinkie answered nonchalantly.
"Dashie?" Starlight asked, trying not to sound desperate for information.
"Oh yeah, our old weather mare Rainbow Dash, she passed away some time ago. But good old Blossomforth keeps things organized at least. She'll probably get help from some other ponies to clear the skies soon," Pinkie was talking about the death of who should have been one of her best friends like she was discussing... the weather, which she also kinda was. This was all so surreal.
Having arrived at their destination, Starlight looked around to see... Sugar Cube Corner about as she knew it to be, if only a bit uncanny. The air was a bit too stagnant, the colors just slightly muted, Pound Cake's smile at the counter seemed just a bit forced. "Welcome to Sugar Cube Corner, care for a cupcake?" he greeted, offering a free sample. The adolescent stallion was a bit lanky, if not malnourished.
"No no, Pound, Starlight here is new in town. Bring out one of the good cupcakes," Pinkie insisted with a not so subtle wink. After just a moment of hesitation and the slightest bit of panic showing in his eyes, he ducked into the kitchen before emerging seconds later with another cupcake, that did look a bit higher quality. "Bone apple teeth!" Pinkie shouted before snickering at some unknown joke only she understood.
Wanting to remain polite, Starlight took the cupcake in her magic. However, under the guise of levitation, she decided to analyze the pastry for any foul tampering. A magical scan revealed various narcotics in the frosting as well as the cream filling inside the mini cake. She hyped herself up, before downing the cupcake in one bite, or at least that's what it looked like to an outside observer.
In reality, she teleported the cupcake as soon as it was in her mouth, splitting it up in half and sending the two pieces into the stomachs of Pinkie and Pound cake. As they both stood there looking expectantly at Starlight, they didn't notice a small lump of drugged cupcake entering their digestive systems. As the seconds ticked by, Pinkie's face contorted in confusion as Pound was sweating bullets. After a whole minute, they began swaying on their hooves.
"What did you..." Pinkie managed to mumble before loosing her footing. Right after her, Pound Cake collapsed to the floor, totally knocked out. "Pumpkin... help," Pinkie barely managed to get out before falling asleep herself.
Seeing both of her would be assailants unconscious, Starlight cast a binding spell on the both of them as well as a personal alarm for if they woke up and tried freeing themselves. After teleporting them both upstairs, presumably to a bed, or at least a comfortable floor, Starlight called out for the other Cake twin while casting a motion detection spell within the entire bakery. "Pumpkin, I know you're in the kitchen. Come out peacefully and we won't have any problems. Otherwise I'll have to knock you out like your aunt and brother."
No response came except for what sounded like knives being drawn from their sheaths. With a sigh, Starlight cast another shield spell before making her way into the kitchen. The sight that greeted her was the last thing she had expected. Eyes wide as dinner plates, the scene in front of Starlight was something out of a nightmare. Pumpkin cake had used her magic to stab herself with every knife at her disposal. Blood was gushing from various wounds as it began pooling on the floor.
"No..." Starlight whispered before something in her snapped. Her force of will commanded her time magic freezing the scene before her. Nopony dies on my watch, Starlight swore to herself. Even if she would be rewriting this timeline, Starlight refused to let another pony die if she could help it. With time still frozen, she carefully removed the knives, and cast some rudimentary healing spells and a stasis spell for good measure on Pumpkin's body. Starlight then teleported all three of the other ponies in the building to the main lobby of the Ponyville hospital.
"Alright Glim-Glam, no more games," Starlight demanded of herself. Seeing first hand that there was definitely something very wrong with this version of Pinkie Pie, Starlight began her investigation in earnest. Casting every detection spell in her repertoire all over and around the bakery she stood in, she noticed something odd in the basement. Rather, she noticed some strong anti detection wards on the door to the basement. Pinkie must have made Pumpkin learn some basic spells for hiding whatever they were doing here , Starlight thought as she slowly made her way to the warded door.
Taking a deep breath, Starlight slowly reached out a hoof to check the door handle. "Locked, obviously. Well, I was gonna have to dispel the wards either way," Starlight mumbled to herself before putting a bit too much magic into her spells, causing the door to disintegrate. "Huh, guess I should be more careful with alicorn magic," Starlight snarked to herself before cautiously making her way into the dark basement.
As she crossed the threshold of the door, the acrid stench of various cleaning products as well as an underlying sour hint of lactic acid slapped her across the nose, forcing her to gag. Reaching out with her magic, she found a light switch. Pulling the string attached to the ceiling light bulb turned it on, and she immediately wished she hadn't.
Before her at the bottom of the basement stairs was what could only be called a sadistic butcher's wet dream. Various electric power tools were spread across multiple sturdy metal tables, all surrounding a mechanical table that looked like a modern take on an ancient torture device.
Taking a closer look around the room only made Starlight want to vomit more, the only thing stopping her was pure shock. Scattered around the walls of the basement were mounted heads of Gilda the griffin, Angel Bunny, Little Strong Hoof, Rainbow Dash, Cup Cake, Carrot Cake, Scootaloo, and Ditzy.
The shock finally wore off enough for Starlight to loose her lunch, as well as her breakfast, and last night's dinner. Her only consolation is that there was a drain in the floor so she wouldn't have to stand around in her own bile. Shutting her eyes, she refused to look at these horrors any longer. Focusing her intention through her horn, Starlight bent time to her will. When she opened her eyes again, she was in an ethereal plane, and in front of her was what looked like a glowing strand of silk.
"Well, at least my domain hasn't changed from how it looked while I was fixing those friendship problems. Still, what the buck happened that caused Pinkie to snap and fall off the deep end like that!" Starlight demanded of the time line in front of her. In response, it just kept fluctuating like a horizontal stock of seaweed in an ethereal ocean. "Right, I guess I don't have a journal, to... read..." she trailed off before grimacing at realizing what should have been obvious.
Without anypony else there to berate her, Starlight simply teleported back to the physical plane, about thirty hooves above where she was previously. With time still frozen, Starlight made her way upstairs to what she assumed was Pinkie Pie's room. Opening the door, the first thing she noticed was a ponykin covered in what looked like a quilt of cutie marks along with a necklace of unicorn horns, and multiple pegasus wings hanging on either side.
After a brief episode of disassociation, Starlight found herself panting while standing over a small pile of smoking ash. Not wanting to dwell on any more horrors of this world, she moved on. Casting various detection and scrying spells, Starlight quickly located her prize. "Pinkie's diary, let's hope it's at least half as organized as her entries in the friendship journal," Starlight mused aloud.
"Hmm, grannie pie, mhmm, rabbit stew... and, there we go!" Glim-Glam exclaimed before demanifesting back to her ethereal realm of time. Stretching and smoothing out the metaphysical line in front of her, she selected her chosen time of intervention and remanifested back in meat space. "Pinkie, before you even think about harming a single whisker on Angel Bunny's face, know that harming small animals is the first step on the road to becoming a serial killer. If you turn him to stew, it will lead you down a dark path of cannibalism and murdering everypony you hold dear. For the sake of everypony, I implore you to stop."
"What?" Pinkie asked, genuinely surprised by the unicorn mare appearing out of nowhere. She was just on her way to Fluttershy's for tea and cookies. So what if she stumbled upon an old rabbit stew recipe her granny Pie won in a card game with a griffin that Pinkie wanted to try out on the little demon rabbit? Who was this mare to tell her what to do.
When her impassioned speech only got a skeptical glare from Pinkie, Starlight decided to change tactics. Ending her illusion spell, she flared out her wings, glaring menacingly and taking a threatening stance she tried again, "Pinkamena Diane Pie, if you refuse to listen to reason, I will have no choice but to erase you from this timeline. I don't want to because it will mean I'll have to find a new element of laughter, but if it means protecting innocent ponies, I won't hesitate to eliminate any threat!" Starlight growled, her horn lit up, ready to incapacitate the pink pony.
Pinkie blinked several times, her face morphing into a mask of pure neutrality. Then, she smiled, "Oki-doki-loki!" Pinkie replied in her regular cheery voice. "Thanks for keeping me from the dark side, even if they do have cookies," she grumbled, tapping a hoof to her muzzle in contemplation. She supposed the rabbit stew recipe would have to just go back in the attic.
Taken aback at the sudden mood shift, Starlight relaxed her posture and took a moment to recover before adding, "also, remember your birthday is the day after Gummy's so don't try planning an after birthday party. Just take the day off and relax," she insisted.
"Thanks for the heads up Glim-Glam!" Pinkie pounced onward to her destination. "By the way, you might wanna check your flanks! I don't think flashing cutie marks is a normal condition!" she called back before leaving ear shot entirely.
Starlight froze up, wondering how Pinkie knew her nickname. "Did she just... no, I never told her that." Starlight furrows her brow in confusion, contemplating. "But, then again, Pinkie was the one who originally gave me that nickname, so maybe she's just good at coming up with nicknames."
Turning her attention back to her flank, Starlight was relieved to see the signal for a job well done. After a quick teleport back to the out of place hologram map, Starlight charged her horn with the familiar time magic she used to get to this damaged timeline in the first place. As the spell was released, the map morphed back into a greenish purple vortex before Starlight let it suck her back home.
Author's Note
Here's a link to the original storyhttps://fimfetch.net/story/1007747395/cupcakes-repost
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
Post Cupcake Stress Disorder
Once Starlight had received an adequate amount of cuddles, she decided to check up on a certain pink party pony. But first, she had to assure Trixie everything was fine, even if it wasn't. "I think I'm good now Trix, mind letting me go?" Starlight asked, not wanting to just teleport away and upset her fillyfriend. "I kinda got stuff to do, things to check on, et cetera..." she trailed off, trying not to be too specific.
"Hold on, if you're doing okay, can you tell me what happened? I'm worried Star," Trixie whined, looking into Starlight's eyes. "What did you mean when you said you needed to see Pinkie's basement?"
"It's a long story Trixie, but before I can tell anypony about it, I have to check on something for my own peace of mind," Starlight explained, still keeping things vague. She didn't want to burden the mare she loved with the knowledge she gained in the other timeline. "I promise I'll explain everything tonight, but let's just say for now that I found something in that other world that I hope to Celestia and Luna isn't in this world."
At that, Trixie released her grip, still visibly worried, but she nodded in understanding before Starlight gave her a quick salute. "What do you want me to do while you're checking out... whatever it is you need to check?" Trixie asked.
"Write a letter asking Twilight to call an emergency friendship council meeting. I'll send it to spike when I get back, they're all gonna want to hear about this new development," Starlight instructed before teleporting out of the castle and straight to the street outside Sugar Cube Corner. Taking a deep breath in, and slowly letting it out, starlight stepped into the bakery. What greeted her was her familiar Sugar Cube Corner. No muted colors, no detail out of place, just as she remembered it.
"Hiya Starlight! How was your adventure in the other world? Did ya meet another version of me? Oh! I bet she greeted you with a crazy look in her eye before she..." Pinkie, who had been smiling as broad as ever and bouncing off the walls suddenly stopped, dropped to the floor, and looked Starlight in the eyes as her face fell and her mane almost completely deflated. It still maintained its curls, but the volume visibly shrank like a sad soggy balloon.
"Pinkie?" Starlight asked, worry evident on her features.
"Follow me Starlight, I'll show you the basement," Pinkie muttered, as she trudged to a door to the right of the entrance. Opening the door, she flipped a light switch inside, revealing a stair case similar to the one in the broken timeline.
After a few seconds of processing what just happened, Starlight trotted after Pinkie down to the basement where she saw... storage shelves. Plain wooden storage shelves lining all the walls holding sacks of flower, sugar, some seasonal themed baking pans, oats, and a few jars of crushed gems; presumably to cater to the growing dragon population of Equestria. "Huh, just... storage," Starlight said before looking over to the dejected pink mare who brought her down here.
"I'm not gonna sugar coat it Starlight, I know what happened in the other world," Pinkie said, still looking dejected. A sight that both unnerved Starlight, and made her want to hug her depressed friend. However, she figured now wasn't the best time. "I know what the other me did. I can't explain to you how I know. It's not my Pinkie sense either, that's for predicting the future," Pinkie explained in a monotone voice.
"Pinkie, I... I fixed it! I made sure the other you wouldn't... do what she did again," Starlight tried cheering up her friend, but to no avail. "I was going to explain what happened to the rest of the girls-NOT IN AS MUCH DETAIL BUT... yeah, If you want to sit out the council meeting, I'd understand."
"No, I'll be fine Starlight," Pinkie reassured with a weak little smile. It wasn't her usual expression, but it was genuine. "I'll be back to my normal self soon, I just... want some time to grieve," she admitted.
After a moment of contemplation, Starlight nodded her head solemnly. "Would you like some time alone?" she asked hesitantly.
"Yeah, I'd appreciate it. Don't worry, I'll see you at the council meeting," Pinkie replied, just above Fluttershy's standard volume. "And Starlight?"
"Yeah Pinkie?" Starlight asked, an understanding smile on her face.
"Thanks for not giving up on me."
"Of course Pinkie, I promise I'll do everything in my power to keep you girls safe and happy in as many timelines as possible." With that, the Princess of Time teleported back to the castle of friendship, appearing right next to Trixie who was lounging in one of the library sofas. Oddly, she barely flinched, still just laying on her back, legs tucked to her barrel, eyes focused on the ceiling above her.
"Uh, Trixie? Did you get that letter written up for Twilight?" Starlight asked, a bit of concern in her voice.
"Oh, yeah. It's on the table over there," Trixie mumbled, pointing a slightly shaking hoof at a single piece of parchment on a nearby crystalline table.
Trotting over to it, Starlight read it over before sending it off to Spike with the dragon fire spell Twilight taught her. With that taken care of, all that was left to do was wait for everypony to show up. In the mean time, she had a filly friend to cuddle. "Hey Trix, make room. It's cuddle time," Starlight announced as she teleported back to the couch.
"What?" Trixie asked, before she was glomped by her alicorn lover. "Uh, Starlight... as much as I love cuddling you, why are you so clingy all of a sudden?"
"Because, miss hot flanks, you need cheering up!" Starlight shot back.
"What?!" Trixie demanded incredulously. "You're the one who was crying her eyes out! I should be cheering you up," she said before gasping, "Starlight, are you bottling up your emotions again? Please, you don't have to do that, I ca-" Trixie was cut off with a quick kiss.
"No, I'm not bottling up my emotions Trix. I am upset about what happened, but I have to move past all that," Starlight soothed the baby blue mare. "If it gets to be too much for me to handle, I'll let you know, but that long cry I had when I got back really helped. Plus, talking with Pinkie gave me some better perspective on everything."
"That reminds me, you still haven't told me anything about what happened!" Trixie accused, as she began to wriggle out of the other mare's grasp to sit up.
"I'll tell you when I tell the others," Starlight said before an Idea struck her. "Actually, if you want, I could just, use some time magic," Starlight suggested, noticing Trixie visibly brighten at that suggestion.
Powering up her horn, Starlight first teleported them to the map room before reaching out to the fabric of time. With a mild tug, a teal orb enveloped them as their surroundings blurred. Soon, they could see Fluttershy making her way to her throne, but she was moving faster than Pinkie or Rainbow Dash, both of which bolted in and to their seats moments later, followed by Applejack and Rarity, and finally Twilight and Spike teleported in.
Seeing everypony assembled, Starlight canceled her spell. To her and Trixie, it just looked like a magic bubble dissolving. From everypony else's perspective, Starlight and Trixie teleported into view just in front of the throne room doors. "I suppose you're wondering why I gathered you all here today," Starlight began, not missing a beat. Meanwhile everypony, save Trixie and Pinkie, were staring at her with a mixture of shock and confusion.
"Uh, ah thought Twilight summoned us for an emergency council meetin'," Applejack cut in.
"Well, I did, but at the behest of Starlight. Sorry for the confusion, but her message said it was urgent, so I figured explanations could wait," said Twilight.
"So why'd ya call us here Starlight? We don't got all day!" Rainbow Dash demanded of the newly minted alicorn princess of time.
Looking very nonplussed, Starlight began anew, "well if you would let me speak, I'll tell you." At that, Rainbow shut her muzzle, biting back her retort. Usually, she'd enjoy a bit of banter, but today she just wanted to get this over with.
"First off, there's been a bit of an alteration to the map." Lighting up her horn, Starlight reached out to the magic map table, causing it to reveal its new extra dimensional features. "From what I can tell, the map has made connections to every alternate timeline, and it has apparently tasked me with solving... friendship problems, across these timelines." Starlight visibly winced at the memory of her first 'friendship problem' she had to solve.
"Fascinating! Do you realize the implications this brings up? The possibilities for studying the multiverse? Starlight, this is incredible! How many missions have you gone on? What differences can you tell us about the other timelines? Have you-" Twilight was cut off in her rambling by a cyan hoof to her mouth.
"Twi, please, I'm on my lunch break here, just let her finish, and then you can go full on Twilight mode," Rainbow pleaded before sitting back down in her throne. To her relief, Twilight just gave a sheepish nod before returning her attention to the other alicorn in the room.
"Where was I? Oh, right! My first, mission.... report." Starlight's ears wilted back and she lowered her eyes to the table map which had managed to reorient itself back to its standard resting state. Pinkie also sagged a bit at what she knew would be coming next. Steeling herself with a deep breath, Starlight continued.
"The map sent me to a timeline where Pinkie... needed my help. She kinda, sorta, snapped and... hurt a lot of ponies. So after subduing her, I found the crux of the issue, went back, and stopped her from falling down the dark path in the first place. I can only hope that my other missions won't involve so much..." Starlight trailed off as her whole body shivered in revulsion.
"So much... what, darling? What aren't you telling us?" Rarity inquired, concern evident on her face.
"Trust me, you don't want to know..." Pinkie cut in, glaring at Rarity for just a moment before catching herself, and looking back down to the table, her glare softening to a look of sorrow. Her mane was about half deflated, but clearly doing better than she was back in the storage basement.
"Anyway, " Starlight said, bringing the attention back to her presentation. "I just wanted to inform you all of the nature of these missions, and... don't be surprised if I come to you for reassurance that, what I saw wasn't real. I know it might sound weird, but if anything I find in another timeline could harm ours, I'll need to know about it, so if there is any similar issues, I can deal with them," she finished, glad to be done.
"Well, ah guess that's good to know," Applejack offered, "jus' make sure y'all don't go scaring mah sis. This stays between us, that sound good to y'all?" she asked, and everypony there nodded in agreement.
"Also, if anypony needs someone to talk to, I am the school councilor. I know you might not think much of me, but the caring and sympathetic Trixie is always here for her friends," Trixie cut in, surprising most of the other ponies who hadn't realized she was there. She made eye contact with Pinkie, then Starlight before continuing. "Even if it's after office hours, I'm here for you," she finished before walking up to Starlight and wrapping a comforting hoof over her withers.
"Now Rainbow, since this meeting went a bit long, how about I send you back about an hour so you'll have plenty of time to eat lunch and get back to work?" Starlight offered, "just steer clear of yourself while your timelines overlap, or you might cause some damage to the timeline," she explained, looking Rainbow in the eyes. "It won't destroy the universe, but I will have to clean up the mess, and it might make you fade out of existence or something."
Blinking away her surprise at the offer, Rainbow recovered with her signature cocky grin. "Sounds awesome! And don't worry, I can avoid myself for an hour no problem," she reassured.
"Well, If you're sure you can handle it," Starlight said before lighting up her horn and grabbing Rainbow in a magic orb. With a flash of teal light, she and the bubble were gone.
"Yeah, I'm sure," came Rainbow's voice from behind the castle doors before she slammed them open hovering in mid air. "Just wanted to stop by and say thanks, I had a great lunch. Now I gotta go for real, or Spitfire's gonna put me on janitor duty for a week." At that, she gave a salute to the two alicorns before bolting out of the castle, making sure to wait until she was above the cloud layer before breaking the sonic barrier, and shooting back to Wonderbolts headquarters.
Just as the Sonic Rainboom wave passed over the castle, Starlight's cutie mark lit up once again, and the holographic map started undulating, shifting and morphing as it did before. Everypony present save for Pinkie, Starlight, and Trixie gasped in amazement at the novel development. Starlight tensed up in Trixie's grasp, causing the blue unicorn to lean in closer to her filly friend. All their eyes widened when the map finally settled down and Rainbow Dash's cutie mark started to rise from Cloudsdale as Starlight's cutie mark started to orbit around the city in the clouds.
"Here we go again," Starlight groaned as she started taking calming breaths. Trixie did her best to help, sitting on her haunches, and guiding Starlight to do the same.
"Hey, Glimmy, you got this! You are the princess of time! Just remember, I'll be right here when you get back," Trixie encouraged her lover. "And when you get back, I'll do that thing you really like with my tongue," she whispered in the alicorn's ear, causing them both to blush, and for Starlight's wings to pop out uncontrollably.
"Alright, everypony stand back, you don't want to get sucked in with me," Starlight warned before lighting up her horn and unleashing the familiar time spell on the hologram. Without further fan fair, Starlight leaped right into the swirling vortex. The last thing she heard was the collective gasps of everypony present before the odd sounds of a key scraping along a piano wire filled her head.
Trixie looked on with mild concern. Five seconds passed, then ten, then a whole minute. "It didn't take her this long last time," Trixie mumbled to herself, her brow furrowing in concern. Nopony moved a muscle as all eyes were trained on Trixie. Then, to everypony's relief, the vortex opened up again just to spit out a haggard, Starlight Glimmer, covered in splotches of crimson. Twilight wasted no time in catching her peer in her magic before gingerly setting her down in front of Trixie.
The azure mare was frozen in shock, not understanding what she was seeing, until she heard Starlight whimpering. "Glimmy! I'm here, are you hurt?" Trixie fussed, checking over the dejected mare in front of her. For a moment she was surprised when Starlight pulled her into a tight embrace. However, once it sunk in what was happening, she wrapped her hooves around the crying princess. "It's okay, the loving and patient Trixie is here, you're safe."
While this was quickly becoming routine for the couple, the remaining ponies and dragon were a bit shocked. "Is that... blood?" Spike asked, his nostrils flaring and eyes widening in horror.
"It's not mine," was all Starlight said before falling into a fit of cries and sobs while the unicorn holding her whispered sweet nothings into her ear.
Author's Note
Any feedback is much appreciated
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
Starlight Fixes Rainbow Factory
Starlight was once again yeeted into a new and potentially deadly world. After going through her mental checklist of precautions, Starlight double checked the map. Seeing Rainbow Dash still in Cloudsdale, Glim-Glam decided to use an illusion to hide her horn. Going to a pegasus city, she'd stand out less as a pegasus, than a cloud walking unicorn. With all that taken care of, she teleported to the outskirts of Cloudsdale before gliding to a nearby cloud for cover.
"Alright, now if I was a Rainbow Dash, where would I be?" Starlight asked herself, not at all concerned about her sanity, nor did she wonder if it was weird. Unlike some alicorns, Starlight appreciated such coping mechanisms after completing so many solo missions to optimize friendship lessons.
"Uh, hi there. You doing okay?" came a voice from behind her, one she barely recognized, but couldn't quite place. "Did ya crash and need to rest your wings? I do that sometimes, it's no fun, and ponies usually get mad when I do," continued the soft, yet bubbly voice.
Turning around on her cloud, Starlight came face to face with a grey pegasus mare with a blonde mane and crossed yellow eyes. "Oh, hi Derpy," Starlight said on reflex before realizing she was a stranger here.
"Oh hey! You know my nickname! I've never seen you around so I must be famous or something without even knowing it!" Derpy exclaimed, elated at the prospect of strangers knowing her. "Maybe my flight examiner will take that into consideration for my test," she added with a bright smile.
"Test? Flight examiner? What are you talking about?" Starlight inquired. If this Derpy is anything like my Derpy, I doubt asking questions like this will raise any suspicion, she thought as she smiled back at the ditzy mare.
"Oh, well, I got in another accident so I gotta retake my flight exam or they'll clip my wings," Derpy explained as her smile ran away from her face. "Anyway, I should go. They dock points for being late," she finished, looking nervous.
"Wait, can I come with you? I'm from out of town, and... I never had to take a test, so I should probably do that so I don't get my wings clipped." Plus, if anypony dares hurt you, I can stop them, Starlight thought to herself, trying to keep up her facade. On the inside however, she was furious that this timeline could be so systemically cruel.
"Oh hey! I never asked your name! You know mine, so what's yours?" Derpy asked while they flew along at a leisurely pace. Her bubbly attitude seemed to be back in full force.
"Oh-um... I'm, Star...Flight! Starflight, Shimmer! Starflight Shimmer's the name!" she lied through her teeth.
"Huh, that's a nice name! By the way, my real name is Ditzy Doo, but you can keep calling me Derpy if ya want. Everypony already does, so it's not a big deal," Derpy explained.
"Would you prefer I call you Ditzy?" Starlight asked, a hint of concern in her voice for the cross eyed mare.
"I don't mind either way really, as long as ponies aren't being mean about it, which very few ponies are," Derpy admitted with a shrug.
"Hmm, well if you change your mind, let me know," Starlight offered before they fell into a companionable silence. a few minutes later, they made it to what looked like a cloud obstacle course, similar to one Rainbow tested starlight's magic levitation on one time. There were about a dozen fillies and colts standing on a cloud along with a green pegasus mare with orange and purple flowers on her flank. Huh, she kinda looks like an off brand pegasus Cheerilee she thought before landing next to Derpy.
"Hi miss examiner," Derpy said, waving at the green mare with her trademark bubbly smile. She only got a deadpan glare in response.
"Line up and wait your turn miss Doo," said the examiner in a tone that made it obvious she was not paid enough for this shit. "Hold on," she said narrowing her eyes at Starlight. "I don't have your cutie mark on my list, who are you?"
"Oh, I'm Starflight Shimmer, I just moved in from out of town. Any chance I could take the exam today so I don't get my wings clipped?" Starlight asked, forcing a smile on her face as she started to sweat.
"Ugh, bucking.... fine. Just line up and wait until I call you," the examiner grumbled, her face morphing from deadpan to a full on scowl. "I don't get paid enough to give a shit, I don't get paid enough to give a shit," she mumbled her personal mantra under her breath until she finally calmed down and got ready to grade the flyers.
After all the fillies and colts went through the course, it seemed a third of them failed and were standing off to the side looking dejected. In fact, some of them seemed to be crying. That took Starlight off guard, but before she could think on that too long, she noticed it was Derpy's turn. The test seemed fairly straightforward, just a basic display of flying capabilities... that Starlight hadn't mastered yet. Buck!
Although it seemed that Derpy was doing okay on her run through. She cleared all her clouds, flew through every hoop in the course, and was doing fine on her controlled dive, but she wasn't able to recover in time and she crashed into the cloud floor. "Starflight Shimmer, you're up. Clear, climb, fall, recover," the examiner said in a monotone voice she had used all day, not even glancing at the fallen mare.
"Uh, what about Derpy?" Starlight asked, glancing over to the small crater in the cloud floor.
"She failed, now begin the exam, or you will be failed as well," was the curt response of the increasingly irritable mare.
With a shrug, Starlight took off. Flying up to the clouds she was to clear out, she did her best to emulate what she'd seen Rainbow Dash do. It took a minute or so, but she finally managed to buck the dozen or so clouds apart. Man, this is harder than it looks, she thought as she moved on to the agility portion of the test.
While she was able to get through all the hoops without trouble, it was clear she was much slower than even most of the foals. With that done, she flew up to the designated altitude and, after a moment of hesitation, she brought her wings to her sides and counted to three before forcing them back open. Unfortunately, with only a basic understanding of her wings, she wasn't able to recover from her fall, and she plummeted to the cloud floor, right beside Derpy's crater.
"Well miss Shimmer, you failed. Go line up with the rest of the failures and wait for transport. I hope you're happy for forcing me to do extra paper work for nothing," the examiner spat out giving Starlight a cold glare and directing her to a small area were the other failed flyers were sitting.
Confused, and a bit concussed, Starlight picked herself out of her hole and trudged over to Derpy. "What's going on Derpy? Everypony is looking like this is some kind of death sentence, but we can just retake the test some other day, right?"
"What? No, we can't," Derpy replied without a hint of her previous bubbly demeanor. "We're gonna be exiled to somewhere our failures can't reflect poorly on our peers."
"What?!" Starlight demanded incredulously. "How could they do that?" A shrug was her only response, Derpy seemed totally deflated. "Don't worry Derpy, I'm gonna fix this. I just need to find Rainbow Dash and get everything straitened out. I bet this was why I was sent here," Starlight assured, patting Derpy's back with one of her wings.
After a few minutes of Starlight thinking up a plan, a large , boxy carriage pulled by two pegasi came and landed in front of the group. "Sorry for the wait, hope ya didn't have ta watch these glorified mud pony foals long," said one of the pegasi pulling the carriage. "Go ahead and start loaden 'em up so we can get this show on the road!"
After a brief moment of confusion, Starlight realized they were talking to her. They must think I'm an examiner. Best not admit anything, let's just see where this goes, she thought as she began ushering the foals and Derpy into the carriage. Normally she'd just grab them all with magic, but for now, it's best she keep up the disguise. Once they were all situated inside what looked like an inmate transfer vehicle, she called out to the drivers. "We're all set back here."
"Why're ya back there with the scum?" came a voice from the front.
"Someone's gotta keep an eye on the failures," Starlight replied. That seemed to be good enough for them because the carriage lurched forward. The ride proceeded in silence, no pony wanting to talk. some of the foals huddled together while they cried. Eventually the carriage stopped, and Starlight could hear some ponies talking in hushed voices.
Soon, a pony in a full body latex suit and mask came trotting up to the entrance to the carriage, their eyes scanned over each of the ponies inside. Their eyes widened a bit at seeing two adult mares, but didn't say anything. More muffled whispers could be heard from outside, from the back and forth, Starlight could barely pick up mention of some numbers, and some confused sounding mumbling from one of the drivers.
Regardless of what was said, they were lurched forward once again as they took flight. Starlight zoned out for the rest of the trip, formulating various plans and back up plans, calling on her experience in solving friendship problems. Unfortunately she didn't bring any pizza or dynamite, so her options were a bit limited. She figured if nothing else, stopping time and teleporting everypony to Ponyville would always be a decent stop-gap option if need be.
Starlight was yanked from her musings by an oddly cheery voice laced with an accent she couldn't quite place. In front of her was a white pegasus stallion with a curly yellow mane. He kinda looked like a white and yellow Pinkie Pie with wings. "Eey there kids... and mares. My name doctor Surprise! How'd you like a tour of the rainbow factory?" He asked, a slightly forced smile on his face. Once again, Starlight failed to place that accent.
"Wait, did you say a tour of the rainbow factory?" Derpy asked, clearly confused.
"That's right, not like ya got a choice though! Anypony who lags behind, gets zapped," said Surprise with a menacing grin.
Starlight perked up at that. Okay, this has got to be the reason I was sent here. Now if only I could find Rainbow, she thought as she took up the rear of the group of failed pegasi. Soon, they were ushered into what looked like a facility made of metal and concrete. Behind them a large metal door slid shut and locked.
"Okay kids, time for the big reveal," Surprise declared as he flew up to a catwalk with a pony wearing one of those body suits, If she wasn't so focused on her mission, Starlight might have made some lewd jokes about their work uniforms. "Well boss, you wanna do the honors?" Surprise asked, biting his lip in excitement.
"Sure, go ahead and get the super speedy filly squeezy nine thousand warmed up," said the apparent boss in a raspy feminine voice. A voice Starlight recognized. "Welcome to the Rainbow Factory mules! You better get ready to die, because we're gonna turn your corpses into rainbows!"
"What," was all Starlight could say as the boss of the facility pulled off her mask to reveal the one pony Starlight was looking for. Next to her, she could hear a pained gasp from Derpy.
"Rainbow Dash? You work here? You're gonna kill us? Why?" Derpy managed to cry out before devolving into sobs. That got Starlight to snap out of her stupor.
"How could you do this Rainbow!" Starlight accused, pointing a wing at the cyan pegasus. "You're an element of harmony! How could you betray your friends like this?"
"I'm loyal to Cloudsdale, and the ponies of Equestria! You are idiot scum who couldn't pass a simple flight test!" Rainbow shot back. "Who the flock even are you?! I recognize derp eyes over there, but I've never met you!"
"I'm the pony who's gonna shut all this down, starting with kicking your flank!" Starlight proclaimed before flying up to the cat walk as fast as she could manage. Once there, Rainbow shot her a cocky grin.
"So, you think you can take me? Fine, if you can beat me, I guess you can throw me in the grinder. But When I beat you, you'll be begging for me to grind you into rainbows!" At that, Dash bolted forward before turning on her heals and bucking Starlight before she could do anything other than cover her face with her forehooves. She was knocked back a bit, but she managed to recover in time to roll in mid air, dodging the next hoof to the face.
Going on the counter attack, she tried punching Rainbow like the clouds she had to bust for the test, but just like then she was too slow. Rainbow easily blocked the punch and retaliated with a mid air upper cut before she brought both forehooves down on Starlight's head. The disguised alicorn plummeted to the ground, only just barely flapping her wings in time to cushion her fall. Instead of knocking the wind out of her, or breaking some ribs, she just got a mild concussion.
"Alright, time out!" Starlight shouted as time froze around her. Getting up on her hooves, she looked up to see Rainbow Dash inches from her face. After jumping back in shock, she took a long hard look at the mare. Her face projected pure blood lust. Her muzzle was scrunched up in a snarl, showing off her teeth, her eyes radiated pure hatred. "What happened to you Dash?" she wondered aloud, grimacing at the monster her friend had become.
Getting back to business, Starlight preformed some breathing exercises before regaining her confidence. "Alright, now I am one hundred percent confident that this is why I was sent here. So, how do I solve the problem..." she trailed off as she began thinking up various solutions. One after another her ideas were discarded until she realized she still needed more information. "If this Rainbow is anything like mine back home, I doubt she keeps a diary... I guess I'll just have to ask her myself."
After dispelling the illusion on her horn, Starlight resumed the flow of time, "time in." As soon as she said that, Rainbow slammed her hooves into the concrete floor, leaving various cracks. Her face contorted in confusion, but before she could do anything, Starlight shot everypony save for the rainbow fodder with her crystalizing spell, encasing every rainbow factory worker in an immobilizing purple crystal stasis.
Next, she grabbed all the foals and Derpy in her magic before teleporting them to Ponyville. With any luck, they'll be fine until I can fix the timeline, Starlight thought as she returned her attention to the crystal holding Rainbow Dash. With a flash of her horn, the aggressive mare was freed from her prison, just to launch herself at the alicorn in front of her. Before Starlight could react, she was knocked back on her rear legs, just for Rainbow to buck her in the gut, forcing the air out of her lungs and knocking her a dozen or so hooves back against a metallic wall.
Doubling over and clutching her stomach, she was just barely able to dodge the murderous hoof that dented the wall just above her head. Unable to breathe for the moment, she just staggered about, trying and failing to block the many murderous strikes from her friend's doppelganger. In a fit of desperation, she began shoving her head at the mare, using her horn as a weapon. She actually managed to impale her horn on one of Rainbow's legs.
The pained cries from the cyan pegasus caused Starlight to cringe in sympathy for a moment before she remembered her opponent was trying to kill her. Thankfully, this short reprieve allowed Starlight to finally force some air back in her lungs. "Time out," she whispered as her horn lit up... and fizzled. Buck me, I guess my time magic has its limits. Mercifully, although the the world around her refused to freeze she once again caught her breath, and pulled her horn out of the flesh of her victim.
Blood continued to flow from Rainbow's wound, spurting out and staining her coat. Taking a closer look at her assailant she saw Dash staring slack jawed at the alicorn in front of her, all but forgetting about the hole in her foreleg. Not wanting her to bleed out, Starlight used a basic healing spell and some fancy telekinetic manipulation to form a cast like structure from her own blood, essentially making a giant scab to cover the gushing hole.
Rainbow Dash just sat on her haunches, wincing at the sudden movement before refocusing her gaze on the horn of the pony she had assumed was a mere pegasus just moments ago. "Who the flock even are you?" Dash eventually asked as her shock was making way for her mind to consciously process the pain in her leg. Grimacing in as she put a small amount of pressure on her leg, she studied the magically created scab.
"My name is Starlight Glimmer... and I'm the princess of time," Starlight gasped out as she continued to catch her breath. After regaining all her faculties, she focused her healing spell on herself. She'd need to see a doctor after all this, but for now, she could deal with some bruised ribs. "I was sent here by... well... I guess you could say in a round about way, I was sent here by the elements of harmony," Starlight explained, only just now thinking about the source of the cutie map and the castle it resided in.
"Wait, what? You mean those things me and my friends used to beat Nightmare Moon?" Rainbow asked, clearly confused about how a bunch of gem stones could send anypony on a mission.
"Look, it's a long story, but the fact is, I was sent here to fix a major issue in your timeline. Where I'm from, rainbows aren't made by killing ponies... at least I hope not," Starlight trailed off as she began to wonder just how rainbows were made in her universe.
Regaining some of her mental faculties, Rainbow tried giving her two bits. "Look, I don't know how you do things where you're from, but here, we've been doing this for a thousand years, ever since Celestia mandated Pegasi take over rainbow production. Ya see, she used to make rainbows with pure magic, but after she had to take on her sister's duties, she had to let something go to conserve power. Eventually we figured out we can make pure spectra from the magic inherent in ponies, and we had a bunch of failed flyers lying around, so why not put them to good use?" she admitted with a shrug of her shoulders.
"How can you say something like that?!" Starlight demanded, incredulously. "What about Scootaloo? She can't fly can she?"
At those words, Rainbow took up an aggressive stance, flaring out her wings in warning. "Don't say that name in front of me! She could fly alright, I made sure of that! I did everything to give her every advantage I could! But she failed her test, so I did what I had to do!" At this point, Dash's eyes were starting to water.
"You killed her," Starlight muttered just above a whisper. Her look of shock gave way to rage. "You killed your own sister?! How could you do that?! Buck your meaningless sense of loyalty to Cloudsdale!" Grabbing Rainbow in her magic, Starlight pulled her in and held her immobile before back-hoofing her. "Just shut the buck up and listen," Starlight snarled before closing her eyes in concentration.
Maintaining her hold on the pegasus, she took multiple deep breathes to calm down before speaking again. "Look, even if this was necessary for a thousand years, Luna is back, Celestia can take up her old job of making rainbows, and you can stop culling your young! Now, what's going to happen is, you're going to answer my questions, then with any luck, I'll fix your world and save your soul."
After trying and failing to struggle against her bonds, Rainbow gave up and hung her head in defeat. "What do you want to know?"
"First off, how long have you been working in this hell hole? Second, who do you answer to? Third, how does this infernal device even work?" Starlight demanded of her hostage.
"Well, I've been working in weather management my whole adult life, but I only started working at the rainbow factory about a year after the whole Nightmare Moon incident. Scootaloo encouraged me to rise up the ranks of my job, so I did," she said with bitterness clear in her tone.
"As far as who I answer to, that would be the council of Cloudsdale. They manage the flight tests, make the rules and regulations, and select the director of the rainbow factory," she explained with about as much enthusiasm as somepony talking about taxes. "As far as how the machine itself works, you put ponies in the hopper up there, and it extracts the magic colors present in their bodies."
"Hold up, you said their bodies, do they have to be alive?" Starlight asked in morbid curiosity.
"No, in fact most of them die in the process of breaking their ribs to get them in the hopper easier," Rainbow answered in a professional tone, like explaining how a kitchen blender works.
That gave Starlight pause as she considered everything said so far. "Do you know exactly what parts of the pony contain the spectra? Like, if I dropped in some feathers, some of my mane, or some hoof shavings, what would happen?"
Rainbow's eyes went wide at that. "I... I d-don't know, nopony's ever tried that before," she muttered, half to herself in disbelief. "Could that actually work?"
"One way to find out," said Starlight before teleporting them both up to the platform in front of the intake hopper, Rainbow still held in her magic. "If I let you go, are you going to behave?"
"Yeah, I doubt I could get lucky enough to win in an all out fight with an alicorn," Dash spat out, trying to hold onto some semblance of her pride. "I bet you even went easy on me before."
Not wanting to correct that misconception, Starlight just kept her mouth shut as she released her spell. Now with all her magic concentration back at her disposal, she summoned some magic sheers, a hoof file, and some tweezers. Clipping off some of her mane and tail, she dismissed the sheers before she filed down her hooves a bit, making sure to catch the dust in her magic, and finally, she plucked some loose feathers with the tweezers.
"Pull the lever Dash!" Starlight demanded. With a clunk, the platform she was standing on fell away, and she just barely caught herself with her wings. "Wrong lever!" she shouted back, glaring at the prismatic pegasus.
"Sorry, Surprise usually handles this stuff!" Dash shot back before restoring the platform to its proper state. Taking a closer look at the labeling, she pulled the lever labeled 'SSFS 9,000' and the grinder started up.
With one last glare back, Starlight turned her attention to the task at hand. First she dropped the hoof shavings in the grinder, and after a few seconds... a small amount of red spectra dripped out through the collection tubes. Next came the feathers, and a similar amount of red pigment dripped out. Lastly she dropped her mane clippings in and out came a bit of violet, blue and green spectrum.
There was a long pause as Rainbow gaped at the grinder in utter bewilderment before finally speaking up. "Well fuck me gently with a chainsaw," Rainbow breathed out. "They told me there wasn't any other way, those useless pegasi would just weigh us down! I... they..." Rainbow hung her head in defeat. "Celestia damn it! I'm going to Tartarus for nothing!" she whimpered as she curled up on herself. "I killed my little sister... for nothing." With that, the dam broke and she broke down, crying and blubbering nonsense.
"Well, at least now I have an idea of how to fix this," said Starlight. "Don't worry Rainbow Dash, just sit tight, I got this." Her words fell on deaf ears as the normally brash pegasus was lost to the world, totally fixated on her mental breakdown. In any case, Starlight demanifested from her corporeal form as she appeared in her realm of time.
Studying the timeline for a moment, she was struck with two options. Exploring the first option she thought of, her hoof ran along the silky thread until it reached a point one thousand years prior. Before jumping that far back in time, she scrutinized the line, focusing her magic on it. What she saw confused her.
From the point of contact, various threads sprang forth, most of them ending abruptly as they peeled off from the main timeline while others just looped back in on it. The longer she focused her magic on the thread, the more split ends appeared until the timeline resembled a frayed rope over a stand of silk. Another oddity is that no matter what, none of them managed to run parallel to the line past the thousand year mark. "Well... shit," Starlight cursed under her breath.
Scrunching her eyes up in revulsion at having to utilize her backup plan, she took her hoof off the timeline and the various offshoots faded from existence. "How many foals will have to die Glim-Glam? I guess I couldn't save everypony," she seethed at her own inability to prevent the culling of so many ponies. Refocusing her magic, she grabbed up the timeline in her hooves once again.
The dead ends strands started popping up, but she paid no mind to most of them. She was looking for a specific thread, or really any thread that could make it past Nightmare Moon. "One century, two centuries, three..." Starlight kept going, slowly pulling herself along the accursed line. However, she soon noticed a strand pass the point of Luna's redemption. As it continued to grow on, Starlight's lips curled up in a smile. The new line made it well past the previous benchmark, finally rivaling the main timeline.
Looking down where her hoof was situated, Starlight's hopeful smile was replace by a look of dread. The new timeline would have to start no sooner than nine centuries after Luna's banishment. "Nine centuries of culling... may the elements have mercy on my soul," she whispered out in prayer. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself before committing to this course of action.
As she selected the exact time and place, she remanifested back in Cloudsdale. Without any more hesitation, she flew to town hall, knocked out any guards who tried stopping her, and barging in on the city council, mid meeting. Before any of them could speak up, she forced all their muzzles shut and bound them all to their seats with a few well placed spells. All eyes fell on the bloody alicorn in the room, looking like an avenging angel out of Tartarus.
"Alright feather brains, listen the buck up!" Starlight shouted to the captive council ponies, flaring out her wings. "The name's Starlight Glimmer, time traveling princess from another universe, and I'm here to audit your asses! I've had a long day, and I don't have enough shits to give to explain myself to a bunch of sadistic lunatics," she explained in the most condescending tone she could manage.
"Now, what's going to happen is, you're going to stop culling foals IMMEDIATELY, and ease the buck up on your asinine testing standards! Furthermore, here's a freebee so you can keep making rainbows WITHOUT murder, IMAGINE THAT! All you have to do is throw in some hoof shavings, loose feathers, and mane clippings. That's right, for nearly nine centuries you IDIOTS have been needlessly killing your young!" Starlight's mane and tail started floating up in an ethereal magic breeze as her rage fueled her magic.
Many of the council members started squirming in their bonds as the rage fueled alicorn continued to rant at them. "Now before I leave you all to carry out my orders, I'll give you one warning. If you don't heed my words, I will be back, and I'll make you wish I threw you all in that infernal machine!" With that, Starlight released her binding spell on all the ponies in the room. "Now, any questions?" she asked, her mane and tail returning to their default state.
One hoof tentatively rose up in response. "U-uh, I... have a, qu-question," one council member peeped up. "If you can time travel, t-then why wait until now to implement your... uh, reforms?" Starlight glared daggers at the offending council member, but she took some deep breathes to calm her nerves before answering.
"Because this is the soonest I could intervene without destroying your timeline. I was initially planning on stopping it at the source, but after determining that would cause the apocalypse, I found the earliest point I could interfere and also prevent your world from being frozen over," Starlight admitted with a shameful bow of her head, before she snapped back up at attention.
"Now, in case it wasn't obvious, everything said in this meeting is the highest form of classified you can imagine. The only thing to leave this chamber today is your orders to end the culling program and to find some way to collect enough material to keep making rainbows. I don't care how you do it, just stop with the whole murder factory bullshit!"
Starlight was exhausted, she felt gross from the caking blood on her fur, and dried sweat from her fight with Rainbow. However, she perked up when she noticed out of the corner of her eye, a light shining from her flanks. "Thank Celestia that's finally over," she breathed out a sigh of relief.
Teleporting back to the cutie map and fast traveling along the timeline until she reached a few minutes after her past self left on her quest. With a sigh of exasperation, she powered up the time vortex once again and unceremoniously collapsed into it, letting the magic carry her limp body.
Author's Note
Big thanks to my room mate and main editor Daelyx for their help fleshing out this story.
I'm still working out the kinks in my writing style, so if anyone has suggestions for improvement, please let me know in the comments.
Here's a link to the original story, I highly recommend checking it outhttps://www.fimfiction.net/story/5381/rainbow-factory
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
After a good long cry in the hooves of her lover, a long steamy shower, and a night of cuddles Starlight was ready to audit the Cloudsdale weather factory. "Like last time, I'll share the gory details later. In fact it might be easier to start making written reports," Starlight admitted, a pensive look on her face.
"I'm glad you brought that up Glim-Glam," echoed the voice of discord throughout their room in the castle. Suddenly there was a flash of light and Discord materialized holding a rather large leather bound tome in his claw. "I've already took the liberty of filling out an entry for your adventure with Pinkamina," he said, opening up the book to the beginning.
Sure enough, there was an accurate accounting of the whole affair as well as her personal thoughts on the matter. "Wha-how did you! Ugh, fine!" Giving up on trying to understand Discord, Starlight took the tome in her magic and started writing a detailed account of her time at the rainbow factory... as well as what she had to do to save the timeline. So many foals, she thought as she finished up the entry.
As soon as the book was closed, Discord took it back to look it over. "Hmm, yes quite a tragedy there. But you really didn't have another option did you." It wasn't a question. "Well Starlight, I hope you learned a valuable lesson from this."
"What the buck kind of lesson is that?" Starlight snarled incredulously as she glared at the lord of chaos.
Giving her his full attention, Discord looked her directly in the eyes before speaking. "You can't save everypony," he said in a stern, yet understanding voice. "Not even I could save everypony. I might be the most powerful being in this universe, but my power still has its limits." With another snap of his lions paw, he was gone, leaving Starlight's new journal on her bed.
After she finished writing her latest entry into her journal of timeline fixes (it's a working title) Starlight stretched her wings and took off for Cloudsdale. At least, that's what she would have done if a certain baby blue unicorn hadn't pulled her tail back to the floor with magic. "Where do you think you're going?" Trixie demanded.
"Uh, to the Cloudsdale weather factory? I need to make sure they aren't sacrificing foals to make rainbows," Starlight replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Not until we cover some new ground rules Star," Trixie insisted.
"Ground rules?" Starlight cocked her head in confusion.
"Yes, I know these missions are taking their toll on you, and I want to make sure you don't overextend yourself," Trixie stated as she brought up a hoof to caress her lover's cheek. "I'm worried Star, so I need you to promise you'll follow some basic rules, if not for your sake, then for my own peace of mind." Trixie's tone was gentle, but her words carried a real weight to them.
At the clear outpouring of love from her fillyfriend, Starlight stole a quick kiss before bidding Trixie to continue. "I'm all ears Trix."
After recovering from the unexpected display of affection, Trixie cleared her throat. "Well for starters, I don't care if that map is calling you to an alternate timeline or whatever. You're the princess of time! it doesn't matter how long your flank is flashing, you don't need to go right away. So, I only want you going on missions if you actually feel totally prepared."
"Ya know? That's a really good point! I guess I was just assuming I needed to solve the problem as soon as possible, but... there's not actually any rush." After a hearty hoof to the face, Starlight collected herself and bid Trixie to continue.
Taking the hint, Trixie went on with her conditions. "Second, I don't care how traumatic you think something is, you share everything with me. As soon as you get back, you tell me everything!" Trixie demanded, an uncharacteristic severity in her tone. "Third, and last for now , if you find a problem you can't fix, come back and let me and everypony else help you come up with a solution. You're not alone Glimmy," Trixie insisted, gently cupping her fillyfriend with her hoof.
"I can abide by those rules," Starlight affirmed, as she slowly nodded her head. "Now can I go audit the weather factory? Or do I need to leave you tied up with magic bonds before you'll let me go?" she asked, with a lascivious leer.
"As much as I enjoy your little power plays, especially when we cuddle," Trixie said with a shiver of delight, "I know you won't have any peace of mind until you see with your own eyes that we don't make rainbows out of foals." With a final parting kiss, Trixie backed off so her favorite pony could take off.
After flying to Cloudsdale for the second time in as many days, at least relative days from Starlight's perspective, she came to truly appreciate those flight lessons from Twilight and Rainbow Dash. She might be an immortal time bending goddess, but
In any case, the weather factory was dead ahead, so Starlight started her gentle descent right in front of the main gates. While Rainbow's winter freak out never happened in this timeline, Starlight still made sure extra security measures were put into place. So the pink alicorn wasn't the least bit surprised when two armored pegasi came rushing to her location.
"Halt! Identify yourself!" one guard barked out while his partner stayed silent.
"Starlight Glimmer; Princess of Time," replied Starlight.
"Do you have proof of your identity?" the second guard spoke up.
"Yes I do," Starlight said before lighting up her horn. In the blink of an eye all three of them were transported to Equestria, fifteen hundred years prior. Catching the two shocked pegasi in her magic, she once again addressed them. "Behold, Equestria of the far ancient past! There's the mountain Canterlot will later be build on," Starlight pointed to the tallest land mark visible to the trio.
"If you look closely, you can see Ghastly Gorge as it leads up to what will eventually become the abandoned Everfree Forest." Each land mark was clearly pointed out as the two guard ponies came to the realization of who they were dealing with. "Do you stallions need any more proof of my identity?" Starlight asked, a smug grin on her face. Seeing them hold each other and shaking their heads in tandem, she once again lit up her horn.
Once the two guard ponies were done loosing their lunches, they waved Starlight through, giving her a royal visitors pass. "For the record, I know you do an important job, and I'm not trying to be malicious, I'm just in a hurry. Keep up the good work," Starlight assured them before merrily prancing inside.
The first sight to greet her was a flowing stream of liquid rainbow. This caused Starlight to freeze up as her mind brought her back to that accursed facility, glass tubes and vats flowing with individual colors. She was brought out of her flashback when a gentle hoof prodded her shoulder and she immediately dropped into a fighting stance.
"Uh, can we help you... your highness?" asked a mare in a lab coat and hard hat.
Blinking, Starlight looked around to see... a lot of scared and confused ponies. Closing her eyes and taking several deep breaths, she managed to calm her nerves enough to speak. As she opened her eyes she pointedly looked away from the liquid rainbow, focusing only on the mare in front of her. "W-what's your name?"
"Oh-uh, Flitter your highness!" replied the pale Persian blue pegasus.
"Tell me Flitter, where do you make your rainbows in this factory?"
"Y-your highness? What's this about?"
"I'll be asking the questions here! If you can't show me where you make your rainbows, bring me to a pony who can! This is a surprise royal audit!" Starlight had to reign herself in just to avoid using the royal Canterlot voice.
"R-right away your highness!" Flitter blurted out with a wing salute before motioning the alicorn to follow. "I just work here part time, so I'll take you to the weather manager."
As they made their way to to a cloud office, Starlight had to keep reminding herself not to freak out at the ponies around her. Focusing solely on her immediate task, and forcing her eyes not to wander, she nearly bumped into her guide as she knocked on a cloud door.
A moment later, an alabaster pegasus mare with a pink and green mane walked out of the office. "Flitter, what's going on? Was there an incident?"
"Sorry Blossomforth, but we're apparently having a surprise audit and I didn't know who else to go to," Flitter apologized as she studied the cloud floor.
"Surprise audit? On who's authority?" Blossomforth questioned with a mix of incredulity and panic.
"That would be my authority," Starlight said, stepping out from behind her guide. Her suspicious glare and ruffling wings helping to get the message across that she was not taking any shit from anypony. "Now take me to where you make the raw spectra before I bring the full might of an alicorn's power down on you and your ancestors." Starlight's tone broached no argument while maintaining a relatively subdued volume. She'd reserve the royal Canterlot voice for if she found something she didn't like.
"R-right this w-way your h-highness!" Blossomforth's tone lost all incredulity and was now in full panic. However before she took another step she turned to Flitter, "go on back to your work station, I'll handle this."
As the pissed off princess and the pegasus departed, Flitter waited a few minutes before returning to her work station a bit shaken up, but no worse for wear. I'm gonna need some extra cuddles from Cloudchaser tonight, Flitter thought to herself as she struggled to imagine what in Equestria the newest princess could want from the rainbow factory.
As they made their way through the back rooms of the weather facility, Starlight took notice of how different it was compared to the other facility. No rusty looking metal doors, or concrete floors. Just clouds, and metallic machinery, clearly producing various types of clouds. No scared little foals, just a bunch of clean and well maintained thunder forged steel.
"Here it is," Blossomforth announced, motioning toward yet another cloud door. "This is where we make the spectra." Not wanting to wait any longer, Starlight shoved past the mare and burst through the door. As soon as her eyes took in the room, her jaw dropped.
"Is... is that what I think it is?" Starlight breathed out in shock at what she was seeing.
"W-were you expecting something other than sugar and spice?" Blossom squeaked out as she trembled behind the overbearing alicorn.
"Yeah... honestly, this was the last thing I imagined I'd see..." Starlight was dumbfounded at first. She saw the whole process from start to finish as the pegasi infused the sugar crystals with spectra from what Starlight assumed was a magic prism. After the raw rainbows were liquefied, they mixed in various spices, presumably to give it it's signature taste.
Starlight didn't understand quite how it worked, but she sure was glad to see a lack of pony sacrifices. Letting out a breath she wasn't aware she was holding, Starlight finally relaxed. Without another word, she teleported back to her room in the castle of friendship, and slumped down on her bed.
Before she could get too comfortable though, another warm body slipped into bed and cuddled up with her. "I take it the audit went well," Trixie stated, a smug smile on her face. Starlight couldn't see it with her eyes closed, but she could feel the smug energy radiating off her cuddle buddy.
"Yes Trixie, it went well. It seems that in our universe, the rainbow's tale is actually as nice as the story we knew of sugar and spice," Starlight mumbled, half asleep already.
"What the buck does that even mean Star?" Trixie asked, giggling at the absurdity of the statement.
"Oh, nothing... just something that popped into my head," Starlight replied before she slipped into unconsciousness.
The next morning, Starlight woke up to a warm feeling on her flank. Not the usual afterglow of her usual nights with Trixie, this was mildly irritating. Groaning at the minor inconvenience, Starlight lifted herself from her bed to see a faint glow on her flanks. "Great timing map. No sleeping in for this princess," she grumbled before catching sight of Trixie, already up and dressed for the day.
"Sleep in? Starlight, it's ten thirty," Trixie said, wondering how her lover didn't realize the time, since that was her domain after all. "But if you want to go back to bed, why not do that time stop thing and just sleep until you want to get up? At least, that's what Trixie would do if she had that power."
"Huh, not a bad idea," Starlight admitted before flourishing her magic and stopping time around her. The uncomfortable heat in her flanks subsided and she smiled as she made her way back to bed, put on her eye mask, and fell back asleep.
Nopony, not even Starlight knew how much longer she slept. It could have been hours, or just ten minutes. In any case, when she next woke up, she was feeling well rested and ready to take on whatever challenges came her way. As she resumed time, she gave Trixie a quick kiss on the cheek before teleporting them both to the map table to see who needed saving this time.
What greeted them surprised and unnerved them both. The holographic map displayed various features never before seen by either mare. All across Equestria, there were dozens of what looked like needles reaching up to various swaths of thick cloud layers. Canterlot looked like a crumbling pile of rubble barely holding onto the side of the mountain.
There were various craters dotted across the landscape, and every major city looked dilapidated. What drew Starlight's attention though, and what simultaneously chilled her to the bone, was the cutie mark that rose up as her own orbited around it. Three pink butterflies, hovering over what looked like a bunch of rubble where Manehattan was supposed to be. "Buck me..." Starlight sighed.
Trixie was quick to wrap a hoof around the anxious alicorn. "Starlight, you don't have to go right now. You can wait a bit, gather some supplies, make a plan, all that stuff Twilight does before she goes on a mission," Trixie pleaded for her fillyfriend to listen to reason. However in the blink of an eye, her hoof fell to the floor and she saw Starlight standing over the map table, determination in her eyes and full saddle bags.
"I'm ready. Thanks for the advice Trixie, I'll be back soon, and in one piece," Starlight promised, giving a confident smirk. Before Trixie could say another word, Starlight cast her time spell on the crystal table and was sucked in without a fuss. About ten minutes later, she flew out of her time portal, and gently landed on the floor inches away from Trixie.
"Wow, that took a while. Did you run into any trouble?" Trixie questioned with a tilt of her head. Starlight didn't look like she was hurt, but there could still be some underlying issues. Although, she wasn't curled up on the floor crying, so that's a bonus. However, her saddle bags looked a bit fuller than when she left. Did she bring back souvenirs? Trixie thought as she continued her inspection.
"Nah, just some weird time shenanigans. Nothing I couldn't handle though," Starlight bragged, oozing just as much confidence as before her mission.
"Glimmy, you know if there's something bothering you, I can help right? You don't have to put up a brave face," Trixie insisted, placing a gentle hoof on Starlight's withers.
"That's just the thing Trix, this was probably my least stressful mission yet! I'll tell you all about it when I write out my journal report, but man! That was a breath of fresh air!" Starlight gave out a hearty laugh before she teleported the pair back to their room. As she floated over her journal, she laid out on her bed and gestured Trixie to join her. "You're gonna love this Trix."
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
Starlight Fixes Fallout Equestria Part 2
I woke up the next morning alone in another mare's bed. Normally, this wouldn't bother me. Normally though, I wouldn't be on a mission to fix a planet wide apocalypse. Deciding not to waste any more of my admittedly infinite time ruminating, I decided to see where Fluttershy scurried off to. To my pleasant surprise, I found her lounging on her threadbare sofa nursing a mug of tea while a second steaming mug was resting on the kitchen counter. Deciding to play along, I levitated what I assumed to be my cup over while I made myself comfortable on the opposite end of the sofa.
Fluttershy took a quick sip of her tea before finally breaking the silence. "The alicorns told me you're a time traveler, is that true?"
"Yes," I replied curtly.
"So, what all do you know?" Fluttershy asked the moment I started sipping my tea. "For that matter, who exactly are you, and why are you here?" More than the abrupt interrogation, it was her eyes that took me off guard, filled as they were with the resentment of a lifetime of unimaginable suffering.
After taking a moment to gather my thoughts as to not offend the fragile, yet terrifying mare in front of me, I started explaining. "Well, in order, I basically know next to nothing. On my way here from Ponyville, I helped a caravan fight some big scorpions, I had a brief conversation with a pegasus filly named Bunny Kicker, I freaked out at the sun and moon being in the sky at the same time, and after trying to save a group of ponies in bondage gear from giant bat monsters, they tried eating me. Suffice it to say, it hasn’t been a fun time.” I took a deep breathe and shook my head to reorient my thoughts before continuing.
"Anyways, then I met Berry. They read my mind and then brought me to meet you here. That's all I know for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's been about a decade or two since the world ended, and ponies are just now starting to fix things up a bit."
Though I tried to give my best reassuring smile, Fluttershy’s pointed gaze still betrayed suspicion. “You still haven’t told me who you are, or why you’re here.” She pointed out.
"Right, well like I told you yesterday, my name is Starlight Glimmer, and this might sound crazy, but I'm actually the princess of time. At least, that's the title I was given. I was sent here by the elements of harmony of my timeline to fix whatever went wrong in this timeline, and it specifically sent me to you. I'm not sure why it wouldn't send me to anypony else, but I'm just glad you aren't some kind of mass murderer… or…" I trailed off as I noticed Fluttershy wincing as if I had struck her.
"Well I guess I'm not as far off from the mark as you might think," she mumbled just above a whisper. "I'm not sure how you're here or how you knew how to calm me down last night, but I'd have to believe you have some kind of time manipulation magic. Otherwise, you'd already know the world ended two hundred years ago, and that it was all my fault."
"Celestia damnit... didn't see that one coming.” Rather than let the fragile mare see my bitter reaction to this news, I quickly demanifested back to the astral plane to let the universe know exactly what I thought of its sick games, as well as several creative activities it could do with its mother. Once I finally got the rage out of my system, I remanifested back to Fluttershy's couch one second after I had left. "My apologies, I had an important matter to deal with," I rasped out after having abused my own vocal cords for over an hour. "Please continue," I said as I took another sip of my tea.
To my surprise, Fluttershy narrowed her eyes at me angrily in response.. "What, do I need to admit all my sins to you before you'll help? Just go back in time or something and stop the war!"
I recoiled in shock that Fluttershy of all ponies would speak so callously. ...you must remember she isn't the mare you think she is. Be gentle and patient with her… Remembering Berry’s words from last night, My ears splayed back and I tried to shrink back into the sofa. "I'm sorry, Fluttershy. I know this must be hard. But any information you can give me might be critical to helping me stop the war. I just need to know why the war happened, and when, so I can do my best to fix it."
Seeing me mimic her usual body language must have gotten through to her. Soon she mirrored my meek posture. "No, it’s not your fault. I'm sorry for lashing out, I really do want to help you. I guess I'm on edge from my therapy sessions. If you can stop the war, you'd save countless lives, that’s more important than my feelings. I just wish I could tell you what actually started it," she admitted sheepishly.
That got me to sit up in surprise. "Wait, you don’t know? weren't you a top ranking member of the government?"
Fluttershy shrank back even further and her voice grew pained. "Starlight, I was conscious for the last two centuries. On top of that, I don't think anypony really knew the reason. But what I can tell you is what made everything worse and led to Celestia stepping down."
My ears pointed forward, all my attention was on her. "And what might that be?"
"The Littlehorn Massacre." Fluttershy peaked out from her mane to see me sitting in rapt attention. "Before the war started, Celestia commissioned the construction of a school for Luna to run. It was meant as a gesture, to show Celestia thought of her sister as an equal. When the war started, the security at the school was increased due to its close proximity to the Zebrican border."
As Fluttershy spoke, her voice took on an increasingly hard edge. "One day a small caravan of zebra refugees came within shooting distance, so the school security opened fire," she spat in clear contempt. "In retaliation, a zebra snuck into the school and planted some sort of chemical bomb. There was only one survivor, the one pony who didn't deserve to live."
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What?"
Fluttershy just snorted in derision. "Forget I mentioned it," she muttered darkly. "In any case, seeing so many foals killed in cold blood like that broke something in Celestia. Everything just spiraled downward from there. The ministries, the escalating arms race, the megaspells." At the mention of the last, Fluttershy flinched as if I was about to strike her.
As gently as I could, I spoke in her usual volume. "What's a megaspell?"
With a defeated sigh, she began studying her hooves before answering. "It's a means to amplify a regular spell to one million times its regular strength. My ministry made the first one, a healing megaspell."
My left eyebrow took an unplanned trip north. "That doesn't sound so bad, what happened?"
She finally looked up to meet my gaze. "During the first field test, my team and I set it off in the middle of a brutal battle. After we set it off, every creature on the brink of death was fully revived. The entire battle field was transformed into a vibrant meadow of flowers and wild grass."
"I fail to see how that could be considered a bad thing by anypony," I said, a hint of incredulity in my voice.
"I thought so too... but then, I was informed that instead of stopping the battle, the soldiers were ordered to keep fighting. On the other side, zebras were also advancing once again. I didn't stop the bloodshed, I just kept it going," she cried out, burying her muzzle in my mane. "After that disaster, I was ordered to give all the research notes on megaspells to the other ministries. Twilight's ministry created countless variations. One that creates a giant whirlpool to destroy zebra battle ships, one to compress a cubic mile of mass into a single point, and of course, the more generic destruction megaspells."
"So, Equestria had all these weapons of mass destruction. But surely Luna would only target the zebras with them, so how did Equestria end up destroyed, too?" Something wasn't adding up in her story.
"Because of my hubris. I thought that if I gave the zebras the notes on my healing megaspells, then both sides would have to settle for peace talks. If both sides could revive their soldiers without end, there wouldn’t be any point to the war! But instead, they used what I showed them to create new megaspells! Baelfire bombs, pink cloud, living storms! It just goes to show what I know! This is what I get for believing in the equinity of others! The end of the bucking world!" Fluttershy's outburst was punctuated with a hoof stomp on the floor that caused a few cracks to form.
Well, that wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared. At least she’s not grinding her friends down into cupcakes. I thought before I decided to try to calm down my friend. "I don't blame you 'shy. You may have played a part in it, but the apocalypse wasn't your fault," I insisted as I gently placed my hoof on hers. She gave me the ghost of a smile.
"Thanks Starlight, you're a really good pony. I'm glad I was able to meet you."
"Same here. You and your friends kinda saved me from destroying my original timeline, so I don't know how good of a pony I can really be." I rubbed the back of my head with a sheepish grin.
"Well, look at you now,doing what you can to save other ponies. I think if you really can prevent the war, it'll make up for any bad thing you did in the past." Her smile finally reached her eyes.
"Oh, one last question before I go, why didn't you guys use the elements of harmony to end the war? I mean, from what I've seen, they're practically a megaspell in their own right."
"Well, there wasn't exactly a single pony or creature to shoot rainbow lasers at," Fluttershy deadpanned. "War isn't like fighting Nightmare Moon or Discord."
Hopping off the couch, I gave my limbs a good stretch before turning back to my friend. "Well, I guess that's all I really need. If all goes according to plan, I'll see you in another life." With a quick salute, and a flash of my horn, I was back in my astral plane with this universe's timeline in front of me. "Next stop, Littlehorn Valley."
Not wanting to mess with any events before the timeline diverged, I located a point about five years after the thousandth summer sun celebration and manifested... in the middle of a construction zone. "Shit!" After I swerved out of the way of a steel beam on a collision course with my face, I decided to just fly up until I was out of danger. Meanwhile, I could hear quite a few creative swears from the construction ponies reacting to a random pony seemingly teleporting into their project.
Once I finally managed to find a cloud to rest on, I took a good look at my surroundings. I was relieved to see a lack of cloud islands in the sky, but I could tell just looking below to the bustling city, something still felt off. Taking to the skies once again, I started scanning the land beneath me. No sign of those towers, here’s hoping I went far back enough. Orienting myself towards the border of the zebra lands, I took off for Littlehorn.
I was still too late. "Luna damn it!" By the time I arrived at Littlehorn valley, it was clear something terrible happened. Ignoring all the bio-hazard signs, there were dozens of corpses laying half melted in pools of some sort of smoking pink liquid. "When Fluttershy said they used a chemical weapon, I thought they just meant chlorine. This is some next level magic bullshit."
Opting to preemptively get out of the way of any possible construction crews, I flew back up to find a comfortable cloud to land on. Once again, I returned to my astral plane to make another jump. "Fluttershy mentioned discord, so let's try year one thousand and two." With another flash, I was hovering above an empty valley. No pools of pink goop, no school either. "Well, that's progress I guess. Now let's go stop the end of the world!"
The flight to Canterlot was fairly uneventful, but once I actually arrived at the mountainside metropolis, I was met with the familiar sight of the palace, thankfully fully intact. Landing in front of the entrance, I was also greeted by the familiar palace guards pointing their spears in my face. "Halt! Who goes there!"
Rolling my eyes, I gave what had started to feel like a worn down sales pitch. "Starlight Glimmer, alicorn princess of time. I have an urgent message for Celestia. How soon can I see her?"
While the guards were taken aback by the sight of an unknown alicorn, their training managed to kick in when their mental faculties failed them. "If you come with me, I shall escort you to the throne room. I'm sure her highness would be eager to learn of a new alicorn."
Making our way through the palace halls, I noticed a few tiny differences. No one thing that really stood out, but just a lot of subtle oddities that made the whole place feel wrong somehow. Sure enough, while the throne room doors were just as big as ever, they were in a completely different hallway. As the posted guards opened the door for us, my chaperone announced our arrival. "My apologies for the intrusion, your majesty. An…” The pony paused as the surreality of what he was about to announce set in. “...Alicorn is here to see you.”
I casually waved up at the princess. "Hi Celestia! I’m Starlight Glimmer, You don't know me in this timeline, but I'm here with a message from the future." Even Celestia momentarily lost her composure at the sight of me, quickly lighting her horn to use some kind of analysis spell which cloaked me in a golden glow and warm, tingling feeling.
“By Starswirl’s beard…” The regal princess before me muttered as the glow faded from myself and her horn, her eyes widened in shock before her face returned to her usual enigmatic mask. "Allow me to wake my sister, she should be present for this." With a flash of light, I was teleported to a massive ornate room. I had to say, I appreciated the princesses forthrightness, constantly explaining who I was and what I was up to had gotten old a while ago.
Polished marble made up the floor and walls, a few red velvet rugs with gold trim covered the former while various book shelves and oil paintings covered the later. To the left, set into the wall was an intricately carved fireplace with various pillows set in front of it. To the right was a princess sized round red mattress with white silk sheets made perfectly. However, before I could explore the diarch's bathroom, there was a pop and flash before a groggy and annoyed Luna was standing in front of me with her more awake sister beside her.
"So… Starlight.” Celestia paused at the unfamiliar name for a moment before continuing. “What exactly is this message from the future?" Celestia was looking a bit more irritable than the last time I saw her. Perhaps her sister had something to do with that.
Taking a breath, I gathered my thoughts. "Well for starters, are you currently, and or about to be at war with the Zebras?"
"The conflict with the zebras has escalated, but I wouldn't call it a war as of yet," Celestia admitted.
"Well, if you can't immediately make peace with them, and war breaks out, I got some advice. Ignore it at the risk of me coming back here to kick your flanks!"
That got Luna's attention. "Art thou threatening us?"
"Only if you don't listen," I shot back. We held each other's glares for just a moment before Celestia put a wing over her sister and gave her a squeeze to calm down.
"We shall heed any warning you give. Please continue," Celestia insisted.
Focusing back on the solar diarch, I did just that. "Stay away from Littlehorn, if you need to build a new school, put it somewhere safer like Ponyville. There's actually a great location for one near the outskirts at the base of a mountain." Wait, but where would Twilight put her school? Ugh, whatever, not the priority now.
I shook my head to clear out the cobwebs. "Anyway, second bit of advice. Don't kill zebra refugees on sight. Lastly, the only megaspells that should be made are healing megaspells. If you want to know what a megaspell is, figure it out yourselves. But don't you dare make them an offensive weapon, or so help me I will come back and shove your heads up each other's asses."
Luna balked. "Must you be so vulgar?"
I fixed her with a glare. "Fuck yes I do. The things I've seen from the world you create would make your stomach churn. Giant scorpion monsters, giant blood sucking bat monsters, and gangs of cannibal murderers was just the tip of the iceberg!”
Luna stepped back in shock for a moment before lowering her gaze. "I see," she muttered softly, her ears drooping.
Looking back to my flank to see if I was done here, I was surprised to see it wasn't flashing. "Well, I guess I'll check to see if this works." Looking back I reiterated my points. "Remember, no Littlehorn Valley, ask questions first, shoot second, and no megaspells of death!" With that, I was gone, teleporting outside the castle I glided down to Ponyville where I spotted the cutie map. Landing on a cloud above it, I vanished to my astral plane and traveled back to two centuries in the future.
As I caught myself in mid flight, I took a look around and saw... a desolate wasteland. Where Ponyville used to be was a massive crater. While the sky wasn't full of cloud islands, and there weren't any giant spires dotting the landscape, I couldn't help but notice directly above me was a sign of the apocalypse.
A giant burning ring surrounded a black hole in the sky where the sun should be. Twilight once told me what an eclipse was... this wasn't that. There was no moon or sun in the sky, just that thing, an arc of glowing light streaking around it but otherwise blacker than the deepest night. The more I looked at it, the more I felt an odd sensation of it pulling me towards it.
Just as I was about to succumb to the vaguely ominous feeling in my gut and fly upwards, I heard the sound of thunder. No, not thunder, that was the sound of a gun. Snapping out of my trance I noticed a fight going on beneath me. "Well shit, they fucked up again." Letting out a sound that was some combination of a sigh and a groan, I zipped back to the past, one minute after I left. "I guess we'll try this again."
Footnote: Maximum Level Reached
Author's Note
Most authors appreciate feedback.
Huge thanks to my cousin for editing this
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
Starlight Fixes Fallout Equestria Part 3
Blasting a hole in a window of the Canterlot palace, I projected my voice throughout the building as I made my way back to the throne room. "I warned you! I fucking warned you! But no! Nopony listens to old Starlight! Now your flanks are gonna get well acquainted with my hooves!" Knocking out any guards who got in my way, I quickly found the oversized double doors before blasting them off their hinges. "You done bucked up sun butt!"
Celestia's usual majestic facade was shattered at the sight of the rage fueled Alicorn before her. "Why is it that when I returned to the future, the first sight I was greeted to was a giant burning hole in the sky where the sun should be?"
"What?" Celestia's alabaster coat somehow turned even more pale.
Her act of ignorance was pissing me off. "I'm sorry, I don't speak 'what', answer in Ponish! What did you do to destroy the world this time?"
"What?" Celestia's legs began to shake.
"Say 'what' again! I dare you-I double dare you, mother bucker!" I may have been over reacting a bit, but at the time, I really didn't give a damn.
"Starlight Glimmer! Cease your temper tantrum and explain yourself! " Luna appeared in front of her sister, snapping me out of my rampage. "It seems your time travel exploits have caused you some degree of brain damage. It has barely been ten minutes since we've last seen you."
By this time, I had landed and was now doing my best impression of Fluttershy. "Sorry, it's just... when I saw that, thing in the sky I just... sorry," I finished lamely.
Luna relaxed her scowl and addressed me with a wellspring of patience I've only ever seen from Fluttershy. "Well, now that you're no longer on a war path for my sister's head, would you mind explaining what went wrong? I assure you we have every intention of following your advice, so how could the world have ended?" She appeared genuinely concerned.
I furrowed my brow in concentration. "I guess what I told you wasn't enough. I might need to prevent the war entirely." Looking up at the diarchs, I tilted my head in befuddlement. "What even happened with the zebras to cause this war?"
Celestia, having recovered her composure, decided to answer. "Well, like I said last time you were here, it isn't a war yet. They may be increasing their naval security after we seized a shipment of coal, but they have yet to actually attack us."
My confusion turned to anger. "Why did you steal a coal shipment?"
Celestia returned my cool glare. "We had already paid for it with a shipment of gems. They were the ones illegally withholding their end of the deal."
Back to confusion. "Why did they withhold the coal?" I hoped this line of questioning wouldn't take all day.
To my surprise, Luna spoke up before Celestia could answer. "The newly elected Caesar is attempting to make up for a bruised ego," she said, rolling her eyes. "Apparently he felt we overstepped our bounds when we sent in a fleet of Wonderbolts to rescue some captives of zebra pirates. No zebras were killed, but we lost four Wonderbolts..." Luna trailed off looking forlorn.
Nodding in understanding, I took a moment to come up with a plan. "Alright... gimme a date and location. I'll go back, teleport in, rescue the captives, and leave. Nopony or zebra will be any the wiser, including yourselves. With any luck, this will put everything back on track."
"Very well, give me a moment to retrieve the incident report," Luna replied before teleporting off to where I assume was the royal guard archive. A moment later, she was back and levitating a manila folder to me. Yet, before I could wrap my magic around it, she yanked it out of my range. "Be sure that if you fail to achieve the results you desire, that you refrain from returning with the intention of violence against us. If you are truly a princess, act like it!"
With that, she dropped the folder in front of me. Catching it in my own magic, I looked up apologetically. "Thanks Luna, I'll be sure to keep that in mind." Then I sighed, remembering all I had been through and imagining just how much harmony might want me to do. "Honestly, I just hope I don't lose my sanity from all this," I muttered darkly. Before either of them could say a word, I was off.
While I like to think I'm more stealthy than the average mare, I found I had my work cut out for me. Sneaking around Canterlot and spying on Twilight my first go around was nothing compared to trying to sneak around a zebra pirate base. My first attempt ended up setting off all the alarms ten seconds after teleporting in. While I was able to rewind time back to before I arrived, that seemed to burn through a lot of my magic reserves. "Looks like it's time to put my ninja skills to the test Glim-glam." Apparently, I couldn't rely on my time magic this time around. This timeline really doesn't agree with me.
After doing some flyby reconnaissance, I located a small gap in their security before I cast every stealth enchantment I could think of. Invisibility, muffled hooves, and a perception filter. Flying into the gap, I started creeping towards where the incident report said the captives were held. Any zebra guard I came across was zapped with a sleep spell and hidden in a nearby bush. While this island's lush flora was excellent for camouflage and hiding bodies, I was making way too much noise for my liking every time I ruffled a fern.
It wasn't long before I started hearing voices. No clue what they were saying, but it didn't sound urgent, so I kept up my steady pace. As I drew closer, I was finally able to make out the two zebras in a clearing... standing in front of the jail cells. While the repurposed shipping containers were rusted and riddled with holes of various shapes, I couldn't breach them without making a ton of noise.
Taking a deep breath, I readied my knock out spell, aimed for the guard on the left, and fired. As soon as it hit, he went limp, while his partner jumped to attention, scanning the area. As he made his way over to me, I could see his eyes darting to and fro taking in all his surroundings. His nostrils flared, his ears swiveled and just as he was practically in my face, he relaxed a little. What blew me away though was he then said in perfect Ponish, "must have just been my imagination."
What the buck? That perception filter is stronger than I thought! Thanking my lucky stars I didn't have to redo this whole mission, I lined up another knockout spell and fired. Checking the two guards for a key, I was surprised to also find one had an entire wheel of cheese in his saddle bags, and the other had a small tin of candies labeled 'mint-all'. Deciding to just take everything, I dumped their stuff in my own saddle bags before retrieving the key and opening the makeshift jail. Looking inside I noticed the zebras backed off in fear before one of them tentatively took a few steps toward the unobstructed doors. Checking the number of hostages against the incident report, I was relieved to know I wouldn't have to repeat this process.
After teleporting all those zebras and myself back to the nearest zebra sea port, I collapsed from the pain of a thousand buffalo stampeding on my brain. While my invisibility fizzled out, my perception filter remained. All around my writhing body, I caught glimpses of dock workers carrying goods, ignoring the spamming mare. One zebra trotted up to me looking concerned, but as soon as they got within hooves reach, they looked up, blinked, and walked away as if forgetting why they were there in the first place.
It was at least an hour before I could finally stand. The first thing I noticed was a lack of any of the captive zebras. The next thing I noticed was what looked like a group of guard zebras being lead by the zebra who had come to help earlier. Not wanting to stick around, I flew off, trying to avoid giving myself an aneurysm. "Damn, what the buck was that? I've never had that bad of a reaction to using magic before. Are horns just, weaker in this timeline?"
While I contemplated the possible reasons for this discrepancy, I kept my eyes out for a nice cloud to rest on. It took a few hours of flight, but I finally spotted a rogue cloud to plop myself down on. "Man, as soon as I get back, I need a vacation. Who knows what kind of worlds I'll have to fix next."
[...]
Princess Celestia landed gracefully before my eyes before she smiled up at the sky, yet something felt off about her. Before I could place it, she spoke in that soothing motherly tone that melted any misgivings I had. "It's a beautiful day Twilight. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping. On days like this, ponies like you..." Celestia trailed off, closing her eyes, and turning to face me directly. "Should be burning in Tartarus!" Opening her eyes, she revealed a burning blue flame where her left iris was supposed to be.
[...]
Waking up in a cold sweat, I bolted upright, true terror gripping my very soul. "What the buck brain!" After shaking myself out of my stupor, I checked my magic reserves. It seemed like my nap restored most of my magic. Sighing in relief that I wouldn't have to fly back to Equestria, I lit up my horn and teleported back to the cutie map. "Let's try this again!" Lighting up my horn and closing my eyes, I once again found myself 200 years in the future.
"Now, I'm gonna open my eyes, and there's gonna be sunshine and rainbows." I opened my eyes and saw... another wasteland. My left eye twitched, my mane frizzed, I could feel the rage building up as red clouds of magic fumed from my horn. I temporarily lit on fire before collapsing in exhaustion. However, I soon felt a small niggling sensation all over my body. It felt similar to that first wasteland, but stronger. Looking up, I noticed Ponyville was a glowing crater, the lip of which was just a few hooves away from the map table.
Deciding I might as well investigate, I hopped off the map and the moment my hooves touched the ground, they felt... like I was getting a hoof massage at the spa. Not only that, but my whole body started feeling refreshed. Making my way closer to the center, the feeling only grew and spread over my whole body. By the time I made it to the center of the crater, it was practically orgasmic. All over my body, it felt like tiny pin pricks of pleasure were penetrating every fiber of my being.
I once again collapsed, not from exhaustion, but from a lack of desire to move away from this Elysium. I even rolled around in the glowing dust, rubbing it into my coat. I'm not sure how long I spent just reveling in that pit, but I eventually noticed some changes. My legs and horn were suddenly longer, my mane and tail took on an ethereal quality to them, my wings were floofier, my coat was a dark violet, and my whole body started glowing a faint green color.
"Huh, this is new." As I fully took stock of my new appearance, I noticed the mind blowing pleasure had mostly faded. On top of that, I felt an odd lump under my hooves. Digging around the center of the crater, I found a strange white orb that looked like a golf ball blown up to the size of a pony's head. Sitting on my haunches, I levitated it into my hooves to examine it further.
Next thing I knew, a commanding voice boomed out in my mind. "NEW HOOVES HAVE TOUCHED THE BEACON!"
"What," was all I could get out before the voice continued.
"MY SACRED LAND HAS BEEN INFESTED WITH FERAL GHOULS! EXTERMINATE THE VERMIN AND I SHALL GRANT YOU MY BOON!" The voice went silent after that, but I still felt like it was watching me, hiding in some corner of my mind. My suspicions only grew when I suddenly knew exactly where the voice wanted me to go.
On one hoof, I should probably get back to the past to figure out what went wrong, while on the other hoof, this sounded like a great way to vent some frustration. I wasn't sure exactly what a feral ghoul was, but if I was just going to fix this timeline anyway, it didn't really matter how much collateral damage I caused here. That's the spirit! Embrace your violent side!
"I thought I lost you in the last wasteland," I said to myself. You did for a bit, but then you found yourself again, and I'm so happy you did. You didn't even know you were lost! I'm so proud, my little violent pony. "Well congratulations you condescending cognitive construct! We're going to blow off some steam, enjoy the ride!"
Finally opening the hidden back door to the temple, I sighed in relief. "Damn, that was a lot more fun than I thought it would be." I never thought I'd see you killing a flying lich with a plasma shot gun, but damn if you didn't pull it off like a champ. "Not to mention I learned a surprising amount of geophysics." Yeah, whoever sent you on this quest must really like you. "Huh, that reminds me, I still have this 'beacon' thing. Wonder what it's even for." Pulling said item from my saddle bags, I once again examine it in my hooves, still amazed at my increased size.
"WELL DONE STARLIGHT GLIMMER! YOU HAVE PROVEN YOURSELF WORTHY TO BE MY CHAMPION. MEET ME IN MY TEMPLE AND I SHALL REWARD YOU HANDSOMELY!" Once again, a location was beamed into my head, and out of a mix of curiosity and really wanting that reward, I teleported.
Reappearing, I found myself standing outside a massive cuboid building in the middle of what looked like the diamond dog territory. "If this is a temple, this goddess or whatever it is needs a new architect."
"ENTER... and yeah, it sucks, but at the time it was built they didn't really care about making it look cool." That voice was starting to sound oddly familiar as it took on a more… casual tone. Making my way into what I assumed were the front doors, I had to duck to avoid hitting my horn on the glass door frame.
"Hello?" My voice was met with a reception desk staffed with a pony skeleton.
"Just ignore the receptionist. She hasn't actually done her job in over a century if you could believe it, so hard to find good help." The voice was actually reverberating throughout the building. I also noticed what looked like ghostly green felt arrows pointing down a specific hall way.
Might as well follow through, even if it's probably a trap. "Well thanks to this power boost, I get the feeling I can handle anything this world can throw at me." Famous last words. Pointedly ignoring my inner pessimist, I made my way to the designated path, ending in swinging double doors which opened up into a massive room, easily dwarfing the royal throne room in Canterlot. What I didn't understand was the obscene numbers of catwalks hanging from the ceiling.
"I know right? Ponies in this timeline were just obsessed with catwalks for some reason. For that matter, why is it called a catwalk? I've never seen a cat walking on one of those hanging metal walkways. Oooh! You're here already! Darn it, I wanted it to be a proper surprise, but I guess the cat's out of the bag. Huh, what is it with cats today?" By the end of the tirade, I was positive I knew who was talking in my head, but the coalescing holographic pony head floating in the middle of the room confirmed it.
"Pinkie!" I wasn't sure if I was glad to see a familiar face, or terrified that the pink pony seemed to have godly powers. "How did this happen?"
"Well, it all started when Little Pip explained what a PipBuck is, then went on to tell her story of exploring the wasteland and trying to save ponies and eventually kinda sacrificing her personal autonomy to save the wasteland a bit? Great story, too bad you didn't stick around to read it with Fluttershy, but if you want you can bring a copy home with you once you're done here!" Before I could respond, a massive grey book big enough to kill a catTM was pulled out of the aether and dropped in my saddle bags.
"Wait, what?"
"Oh, while I'm at it, I might as well send you off with all the supplementary material. I know Twilight will have a field day with these! They might even take her a whole month to get through!" Once again a tome was materialized, a red one this time, and almost three times larger than the last. However, a few more books were pulled from... wherever Pinkie Pie pulled stuff from. A green one about twice the size of the first book, a purple one that looked slightly smaller than the first, and a pink one that looked about the size of any average book in Twilight's library.
"What? Wait... what?" While I was standing there dumbfounded, Pinkie just kept stuffing my saddle bags.
"Well you retconned all those great stories with your time magic, just like you'll do when you go back again, but I felt it would be a shame if ponies couldn't enjoy them, so feel free to make copies and distribute those bad boys! Since the events in them never happened, you can even label them as fiction. But enough about all that, you're here to find out what keeps going wrong, and I'm your Pinkie ex Machina!" Before I could say another word, my head was flooded with raw information.
Collapsing on the ground, all I could do was curl in the fetal position while my brain was used as a dumpster. I could feel some warm thick fluid flowing from my nose as I clutched my hooves to my temples in a vain attempt to alleviate some of the pain.
Countless images, impressions, and feelings flashed through my head in nauseating succession. Faster than I could make any sense of, I experienced countless lives. The sight of gray skies, the feel of rain drenching my coat, the smell of blood and gunpowder, the color green. Twin fetuses squirming in my abdomen, the pain of a whip on my back, pillars of light falling from the sky, my flesh burning away in a plume of fire…Then, just as suddenly as it started, the pain was gone, and I knew exactly how to fix this accursed timeline.
There was one last question I needed answered. "Pinkie," I rasped out through the pain in my... everything. "Why did you send me on that beacon quest?" I sure hoped Pinkie could hear me, because I could barely hear myself as my body slowly healed.
"Oh, I just thought you could use a fun distraction for once."
"Luna damn it Pinkie Pie... you are so random." I shook my head as I finally stood on my hooves.
"Hey! That's Dashie's line, silly!" She just giggled at my look of utter dumbfounded confusion. "Good luck on your big quest and... Starlight?" The giant pinkie head shrunk down to a hologram of Pinkie's whole body before it walked up, and hugged me. "Thank you, for everything." Pulling back, I saw she wore a smile, but her eyes radiated the same sorrow I saw in Fluttershy's. "You're preventing more suffering than you can possibly imagine, please remember that."
After I recovered from my shock, I gave a stiff nod. "That's good to hear, I'll try to keep that in mind."
Before I headed back to the past, I decided to make a final pit stop in that beautiful radioactive crater. I would have to avoid most ponies in the past for a bit due to the fact I myself would be radioactive until I expended a good amount of magic. In any case, if I needed more, I could just find some star metal to smash against the moonstone orb I have in my saddle bags.
Huh, so that's what that thing was. "Yeah, I guess Pinkie thought of everything huh?" Yeah, that sure was convenient huh? "Don't look a gift from a horse in the mouth!" I think that radiation is giving you brain damage. "Shut up. We're going with my plan, it's gonna be epic, so just enjoy the fireworks. I know I will."
Footnote: Maximum Level Reached.
Quest perk added: Touched by a goddess: So it wasn't enough that you start out a max level and super OP, but now you just get a deus ex machina as a reward for some dumb side quest? Fine! Whatever! You're taking all the fun out of the game though! You now know exactly how to solve all your problems!
Author's Note
After this, there's just one more chapter, and Starlight will finally move on to a new story. I won't be taking this long on most other stories though, I wanted this to be the longest "fix" because Fallout Equestria and its side stories have a reputation for being obscenely long, except Pink Eyes. That's a pretty reasonably length. If you do like long stories though, I do recommend reading Project Horizons. I'm almost done reading it for the second time. Definitely preferable to listen to the audio book.
Starlight Fixes Everything Else
Starlight Fixes Fallout Equestria Part 4
Luna was shooting me a death glare. Celestia was spasmodically flailing as her laughter filled the hermetically sealed war room. Cadance was slack-jawed in utter bafflement. Shining Armor and Rainbow Dash were grinning like like it was Nightmare Night and Hearths Warming at the same time. Twilight was hyperventilating with Spike handing her paper bags to breathe into. Rarity had fainted on a couch that wasn't in the room a minute ago. Applejack was just looking at me like I grew two heads and started speaking Neighponese and Prench. Fluttershy was curled up in a ball in the corner trying not to be seen. Pinkie Pie just gave me a knowing smile.
I gave my best poker face while I sipped a mug of coffee. "Any questions?"
"You want to do WHAT with MY moon?"
"Lu-Luna! Bwahaha! Yo-your hahahahaha!"
"Who... what? Seriously, what? I... what?"
"I know Cadie, isn't it great? I've been chomping at the bit to really put my shield to an ultimate test!"
"Buck yeah! This is gonna be so awesome!"
"Bu-bu-bu-bu! I-it, Shiny, Rainbow... gah!"
"Breathe Twi, just breathe and try not to think about it! But hey, the plan sounds... physically possible? I'm sure the new glowing alicorn princess knows what she's doing. Just please don't faint like Rarity!"
"Is anypony else wonderin' why the new alicorn is gloin'?"
"Can we please go home now?"
"I think it's a great plan, and I'm sure it'll end in sunshine and rainbows!"
"Um, actually, I have a question about the plan. Why am I here?" Starlight asked, suddenly aware of all eyes in the room darting to her.
I put my now empty mug down on the war room table. "Luna, you heard what I said, and believe me when I say your moon won't miss Tom. Celestia, stop laughing at your sister. Cadance, I need you to help out your fuck buddy with the shield along with your aunts, Twilight, and myself. Shining, this isn't about you, and it isn't going to be your shield. The fact is I'll be supplying a majority of the magic output for this thing, but we need all our heavy hitters because I don't want to risk liquefying the surface of Equis."
Finally I relaxed, offering a smile to my alternate timeline friends. "Yes Rainbow, it will be awesome, and you'll have front row seats to the fireworks, but only after you finish your mission." Draping a comforting wing around my old mentor, I nuzzled her head. "Twilight, I assure you I triple checked the math on this, but if you want, I can write up my work for you to go through and check for yourself. Spike, you're doing a great job. Twilight is lucky to have a little brother like you."
Turning slightly, I addressed the orange earth pony. "I'm honestly not one hundred percent sure about all the exact intricacies, but I know that the artificial alicorns in the future were empowered by magical radiation, and for whatever reason, I took on their specific traits when I came to this timeline. What you're currently seeing is the tail end of the last time I rolled around in radioactive dirt."
Applejack shot me a deadpan stare. "Mind explaining that in plain Ponish?"
I chewed the inside of my cheek and stared up at the ceiling as I thought it over. "The magic bombs from the future left behind magic glowing waste that kills most ponies, but it makes artificial alicorns stronger." I looked over everypony else in the room before continuing. "That's how this plan will be possible in the first place. The moonstone starmetal reaction will create obscene amounts of magic radiation that will use to maintain the shield once tom touches down."
"I thought we agreed never to speak of Tom again!"
"Glad to see you’re awake again, Rarity. Also, I didn't name the moonstone meteor. I think either Trottenheimer or Golden Blood named it."
Celestia shot up, her mirth all but forgotten, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Golden Blood? You mean Blue Blood's illegitimate son? He's a history teacher at my school. What does he have to do with any of this?"
"If I can help it, nothing. If everything goes according to plan, he'll live his life as he should have." My words seemed to reassure Celestia, but she still appeared troubled. Looking around again, I saw Fluttershy was sitting at the war table, Rainbow Dash draping a wing over her oldest friend. If I can help it, none of them will know the horrors of war.
Finally, it was time to address my own doppelganger. "Starlight, I need you to help Rainbow Dash and Zecora with their mission. Remember not to underestimate the Legate. He’s an immortal zebra who uses dark ritual magic. He’s also a master at hoof to hoof combat, so try to steer clear.” Looking up, I addressed the remainder of the assembled ponies. “If there's no further objections or confusion over all of your roles, we should head out."
"I still object to this farce of a plan!" Luna stomped her hoof in indignation.
I raised an eyebrow. "Luna, it's either this, or the world dies. The Eater of Souls is a parasite, and this is the only way to kill it. Or would you prefer to see Equis slowly die off over the next thousand years?"
Luna ground her teeth before muttering a response. "Fine. But mark my words, if Discord takes any more of my moon than what is absolutely necessary, I will shove your head up your own posterior."
So much for not being vulgar moon butt. I rolled my eyes at her threat. "Duly noted. Now, let's head out! The sooner we get this shit done, the sooner I can get out of your manes."
Everypony had their roles to play, myself included. First order of business is releasing Discord on parole. "Alright Twilight, whenever you're ready." With a curt nod, she began channeling the magic of harmony, each element placed equidistant around Discord's statue. As soon as the rainbow lasers blasted off his stone prison, there was a blinding flash that forced everypony to cover their eyes. As soon as the flash dissipated, Discord had materialized right in my face.
"About time you figured it out Glim-Glam!" Snaking himself around me, Discord continued his mockery. "I mean really! You couldn't have maybe stuck around and asked Minister Fluttershy more questions, or maybe ask one of those alicorns about the 'light bringer'!" With another flash, a dunce cap appeared on my horn while Discord now wore a shirt saying 'I'm with stupid' as he draped a paw around my withers.
My brow furrowed in annoyance. "Discord-"
The Draconequus shushed me before continuing his diatribe. "Now you're just doing what Blackjack did, just with fewer steps. Though, I guess I should still thank you for retconning my death, and being tortured for two centuries by sparkle but over there."
"Wait, what?" Twilight balked before glaring up at the over powered annoyance. "I would nev-"
Discord slunk over to the purple pony, getting up in her personal space. "Now, now Twiggles, no need to get offended. I'm sure you didn't mean to leave me in that underground blood sucking chamber. If you hadn't been dragged into that science experiment of yours along with Trixie, there's a good chance you might have remembered to offer me a mercy killing."
"Discord, enough. You know why we released you, and that we can always put you back. You also know what we're up against, so stop taunting Twilight with the sins of an alternate timeline, and do your job. You can fuck around after the eater is dead." I couldn't help but notice half the ponies present look my way with incredulous glares at my swearing, but I was past giving a shit.
"Oh, I already did my job. What did you think that huge flash was?" Discord was once again coiled around me like an anaconda. "Oh, speaking of, you should probably get everything else ready asap. You've got just under seventy two hours before Tom touches down in the middle of Hoofington."
Everypony's jaws dropped at the grim news. Everypony except Rainbow Dash. "What the buck! We only have three days to evacuate a whole town and track down an immortal Zebra bastard?"
"Calm down Rainbow, that's plenty of time, but you should definitely get started immediately. Go on and meet me, Starlight and Zecora in Ponyville. I'll send you guys to Roam, then you and Starlight can help Zecora find Amadi."
"Okay, but how do we capture the freaky immortal star cursed zebra dude, and keep him captured?" Rainbow crossed her forelegs in confusion as she hovered in front of me. "I mean, if half the stuff you told us is true, he'd be a hassle even for me!"
"Starlight and Zecora will handle that. Just make sure you find him before Tom hits the planet. Starlight will let me know and I'll bring you back." Rainbow looked as if she was about to argue, but with another glance my way decided it wasn't worth it. As her rainbow trail faded from view heading towards Ponyville, I addressed the remaining group.
"Alright Fluttershy, you've done your part. You can head home now and we'll handle the rest. Applejack, Rarity, we'll need all the help we can to evacuate ground zero. Spike, you can head home. Pinkie, I need you to get me the thing at the place and bring it to Hoofington."
With a salute from the pink party pony, she started bouncing off to her task. Rarity and AJ gave nods of understanding before galloping off to the Canterlot train station. Spike on the other hand still looked stressed. "I can't just sit at home while Twilight's out there helping you blow up a star monster!"
Twilight knelt down to the little dragon's eye level. "Spike, it's fine. I quadruple checked Starlight's plan. She could honestly do this with just Luna and Celestia, but she'll have the rest of us there just in case. If something does go wrong though, the blast would end up liquefying the planet's crust!"
Spike returned his sister's worried gaze with a flat deadpan. "Twilight, I can swim in lava. If nothing else, you could use me as a heat shield." Before anypony could respond, he furrowed his brow in worry. "Plus, if I'm at home, I'll just be worried about you the whole time."
"Well, him being there won't hurt anything, so I don't see any reason not to bring him. Just be sure you're all at the rendezvous point an hour before impact." With that, the rest of us broke off. The princesses flew off to make the announcement to Hoofington while Shining galloped off to round up all the spare guards he could to help with the evacuation. I teleported myself, Twilight and Spike to Ponyville to set up accommodations for the inevitable influx of refugees.
With all that out of the way, I flew off towards Zecora's hut where I met myself, Rainbow Dash, and Ponyville's local shaman alchemist. After double checking they had everything needed for their journey, I lit up my horn and sent them halfway across the planet. Unfortunately, I also burned out my horn in the process, shrinking back to my original size.
"Well, now is as good a time as ever to pick up Luna's old starmetal armor," I grumbled to myself as I rubbed my temples. Let's just hope it doesn't start whispering corruptions and temptations, leading you to accidentally serve the eater like a certain rat bastard. "Well, he's not going to be a bastard by the time I'm done." Oh, so you're gonna go back and force Blue Blood to tie the knot with Goldie's mother? Sure, what's another iron in the fire. "Shut up, you know what I meant."
Flying through the Everfree, I felt almost nostalgic for the old times when all I had to worry about was fixing the friendship problems from Twilight's journal. Or even the monsters and villains that kept popping up to threaten Equestria. Even on my first go around it wasn't this big of a headache. Wouldn't it be easier to just prune some branches of the timeline?
"No! Not happening! I doubt I could even do that if I wanted to! Which I don't!" Oh, you know for a fact you could do it. You're just too sentimental to erase a doomed timeline. "This isn't a doomed timeline! I know how to fix it, and that's what I'm doing." But what if you hadn't come across that Pinkie Pie goddess? "I would have figured something out! I'm not going to kill a whole universe of ponies!" You're not killing anypony. They just won't be born to begin with. "It's not happening, so stop bugging me about it!"
Just then, a tree snuck up in front of me and slammed itself into my head. Should have paid more attention to where you were flying. You're almost as bad as Rainbow Dash. "Maybe you should stop distracting me. I mean, you are in my head so if I die, you die." Before my crazy could delay me any further, I decided to hoof it the rest of the way to the castle of the two sisters. I thought alicorns were immortal. "Well, Celestia and Luna died in this timeline, and Little Pip killed a few alicorns in her day, so I'd rather not test it out." Fair enough, I'll leave you be... for now.
"Finally," I groaned before looking around to get my bearings. Turns out, my subconscious is actually a half decent navigator because I was standing right in front of the rope bridge leading to the castle. After exploring the castle a bit, I found the chamber where Nightmare Moon was defeated. On the ground were the starmetal scraps, scattered around like so much broken glass.
Bringing out my moonstone orb, I levitated up a sliver of starmetal to the orb and practically purred as the radiation began to spike the closer they came to each other. Bringing them in physical contact the moonstone was flung into a nearby wall as the starmetal disintegrated in a blinding flash of precious radiation. By the time my eyesight returned, I found I was once again a full sized alicorn.
"Ha, good to be back." I did a little happy dance as I swept up the rest of the starmetal shards in my left saddle bag. Once I got all that out of my system, I grabbed up the now slightly dented moonstone in my magic and dropped it in my right saddle bag. "I'll have to see if I can come back here after I finish up. I bet swimming in radioactive water is even more fun than rolling in radioactive dirt."
As I gazed out at the ocean from Star Point on the outskirts of Hoofington, I prepared myself for what would hopefully be my final attempt at fixing this timeline. And what if it still doesn't work? What then? "It'll work." But what if it doesn't? "Then I'll try something else." For how long? "As long as it takes, but this plan will work and you know it." I can feel a migraine coming on.
True... but you have to realize one of these days you'll come across a doomed timeline. Maybe your next mission, maybe one hundred missions from now. But given the infinite nature of the multiverse, there's bound to be truly doomed timelines, destined to failure. "False. There's always something I can do. Go further back, change something else, brute force my way through trial and error." What's the difference between pruning a timeline at the root, and just going so far back, you completely change the nature of that universe? If you really wanted, you could go back to when the eater first impacted the planet and move the moon in front of its trajectory.
"But then Glim-Glam couldn't be sure some other star monster wouldn't come later, or maybe the eater would find a way to survive. This is the best way to make sure the big mean meanie pants stays gone forever, also you should really leave Glim-Glam alone like you promised you would. I know you're just trying to help in your roundabout cryptic antagonistic way, but Starlight really just needs to focus on the task at hand." I wasn't even surprised by Pinkie just popping up out of nowhere holding the starmetal sword I'd need to kill the legate. Nor was I surprised that she apparently heard what my inner thoughts were saying.
I looked down at my Deus ex machina with a bemused smile. "Hey Pinkie, why didn't you become the princess of time? You seem to be a lot better at knowing what needs to be done and doing it."
She just stared up at me like a cow stares at an oncoming train. "Ha ha... please." Deciding it was best to leave it at that, I turned back to the city to see how the evacuation was going. "Sure was nice of Discord to give us three days to get all this organized huh Starlight?"
I rolled my eyes thinking of that perpetual thorn in my side. "I would have preferred a bit more time for a buffer, but I'm just glad he wasn't more of a hassle to deal with."
"Well duh, he knows what's up, at least this version of him does. After all, not all Discords are created equal." Pinkie gave a sage nod as if imparting some grand secret of the universe.
I cocked my head with a snarky grin at her apparent desire to doll out free advice. "Any chance you could give me a heads up on my next mission madam Pinkie Pie?"
"I already did, silly! Besides, you should be focusing on your current mission. It looks like the evacuation is almost done, and Twilight should be arriving soon." Sure enough, not a moment later, I got a mental flare from my doppelganger.
"Hey! Other me! We got Amadi subdued, but Zecora is still struggling to keep him down! Please get here asap!" Noticing Pinkie had disappeared, leaving the sword behind, I levitated the sheathed weapon into my left saddle bag before pulling out my moon stone and another sliver of starmetal armor. Not wanting to lose my source of magic radiation, I settled the moonstone into a patch of dirt just beneath my barrel before tapping the starmetal on the top of the orb.
The resulting flash was like a beam of pure pleasure to my underbelly and it left me at least a head larger than Celestia and glowing a faint green aura. After digging up my precious moonstone and replacing it in my right saddle bag, I teleported to the location Starlight was pinging every few seconds.
The second I materialized in a tall grass savanna next to my smaller self, I stopped time before anypony or zebra could react. To my relief I saw Zecora had Amadi in a head lock while Rainbow Dash was in the process of beating his head with a metal folding chair. Little Starlight was just gaping at the sight in confused horror. Before my spell could wear off, I teleported all of us back to Star Point. Grabbing Amadi in my telekinesis, I teleported the two of us a few hundred hooves above the core of the town before resuming the flow of time.
"Get off me you crazy mares I-" he froze mid sentence as he realized he was no longer in a headlock. After looking around while suspended by my magic, his ears flicked and his eyes bulged in panic, before returning to his previous glare. Finally, he addressed me directly. "So, I take it you're the one who's been throwing wrenches into my master's plans?"
I returned his glare with my own. "If by master, you mean the eater of souls, then yes. My name is Princess Starlight Glimmer, you killed my father, prepare to die."
That got a confused look out of the bastard. "I've never even met your father, or you for that matter."
"No, but if left alone, your actions would lead to his death, along with the rest of the world."
"I've been trotting along this planet for thousands of years, and you are by far the strangest creature I have ever met."
I smirked at that. "I'll also be the last creature you'll ever meet." With a single fluid motion, I pulled the starmetal sword out of my bag, unsheathed it, and decapitated the bastard. Of course, that didn't kill him, so before he could do much more, I sliced off his limbs, and started dissecting him to find his soul jar while occasionally having to chop off his regrowing head. Eventually though, I found the core of his being, and without further fanfare, I pulled it from his wriggling guts and sliced it into as many pieces as physically possible.
As expected, his body reformed a final time. However, his black stripes had taken on a green glow. "Ha! My master won't let me die! The eater still requires my services!"
"Oh, I know you're capital 'I' immortal as long as the eater exists. But I wonder what will happen when your master is disintegrated by a mountain of moonstone. Will you remain? Be given a normal lifespan? Or will millennia of life catch up and turn you to dust? Maybe you'll just liquefy. In any case, we'll find out in about an hour." Looking up, I saw I was a bit off on my calculation. I could see Tom far above the planet, but at its current rate of approach, it would touch down in about forty five minutes.
Following my gaze, the immortal ass hole gaped at the sight. "How? You ponies have only just started dreaming of a space program."
I gave him my best shit eating grin. "You can thank Discord, or as you like to call him, Coyotl."
That seemed to set him off. "What? No! He's a statue! Unless you ponies really were dumb enough to let him out again! You have no clue what he's capable of!"
"I'm pretty sure I have a good idea," I deadpanned. "Seeing as he helped me save Equestria from the changelings... before I went back in time and fixed that whole issue, but I'd say we're still pretty good pals. At least, he helps me keep track of these missions I keep being sent on."
Amadi was starting to look desperate. "He's just manipulating you! If you continue down this path, it'll lead you only to misery and ruin!"
"Oh, I'm well aware he's manipulating me. He kinda makes it obvious, but I was sent on these missions by the Elements of Harmony. Discord isn't a sadist, he's a prankster, he shakes things up, but he doesn't send alicorns on missions to alter a bunch of timelines to be more in line with the vision Harmony has for the multiverse." Why are we even talking to this ass hole? Shouldn't we be getting ready? I couldn't help but agree with my inner voice this time.
Nodding to myself, I froze Amadi in a pink crystalline prison and set him down where the heavy hitters and spectators were gathered. "Pinkie, keep an eye on the legate for me. Everypony else, get into position, and don't break formation." With a salute from the pink enigma and curt nods from the alicorns and unicorn powerhouses, I took to the air and pulled out the last of my starmetal and moonstone.
Flying up above the center of hoofington, I carefully positioned each piece of starmetal around the sphere of moonstone before slamming them together. The reaction released a wave of magical power with the force of a balefire bomb. My eyes snapped shut but couldn't block out the blinding light of the explosion, while the shockwave flung me backwards through the air. As I struggled to regain my balance, I felt the waves of magical radiation empowering me, preparing me for the big event, so much power coursing through my veins that I found it difficult to control. This must be how Twilight felt when she fought Tirek . Opening my eyes again, I looked down towards hoofington; the center of the town was now little more than a glowing crater.
Satisfied with my current energy levels, I flew over the ponies in formation and gave the signal to begin forming the blast shield. Waves of gold, cobalt, teal, and raspberry pink magic swirled into place like a vortex of magic, forming a massive conical shield reaching up towards space. And above it, the visible sight of the teardrop shaped meteor, blazing intensely as it burned its way through the outer atmosphere towards the impact sight.
"Here comes Tom!" Just as I added my turquoise aura to the barrier, the meteor plummeted down into the crater. A wave of sheer magic, unlike anything I had ever seen, blasted forth as the Moonstone struck home, immediately vaporizing everything within the shield to a blindingly hot plasma. Even through the shield, I could feel the heat and magical radiation pulsing out.
My horn burned with intensity as the shield strained to hold back the titanic power contained within, and a glance at the other ponies holding up the shield revealed a similar strain. Forcing my way forwards, slivers of magical leakage scorching my fur, I basked in the sheer force of the magical radiation.
If my power was difficult to control before, it was almost impossible now. It begged for a release. And with the shield spell before me struggling to hold up, I had the perfect recipient. Incalculable amounts of magic poured forth from my horn, the shield shifting as the aura of the others began to pale in comparison to the might of my own magic.
The searing column of plasma ruptured through the planet's crust, pouring up into space and down into the mantle. With a final surge of light, and an ear-piercing scream like that of a dying dragon, the pillar of fire finally dissipated into a blur of glowing radiation, and then nothing. Releasing my grip on the shield spell, the others around me one by one did the same, everypony looking on with an expression of both awe and exhaustion. The red-hot walls of the massive pit which had formed where hoofington once was, now a hole that appeared to lead directly to Tartarus, hissed with steam as the two rivers previously surrounding an island poured down into the void on superheated cliffs of long-buried stone.
With the detonation completed, there is a final shockwave that pulses through the air; this time, not of an explosion, but an implosion, as the air from all around was sucked back into the vacuum formed by what was once Hoofington. Only the quick thinking of the unicorns present and their telekinetic powers prevented everypony present from being sucked down into the pit to hell beneath them.
Landing back with my friends, I released Amadi from his prison. For about ten seconds, he seemed to just be thinking of what to say. His mouth worked, but no words came out. Finally, he settled on just screaming his lungs out as he began to liquefy. I couldn't help but find a morbid similarity to the tone of his scream and that of the eater's last moments.
"What a drama queen!" Discord materialized from a nearby rock, first popping out a pair of eyes, then quickly morphing into his regular self, minus the fact that his head still took the shape of the rock. "I mean really, when you serve something called the eater of souls, you really shouldn't be surprised that your inevitable defeat would be painful. He really should have read the fine print when he made that contract."
"So nice of you to join us, did you enjoy the light show?" Discord just smirked at my sarcasm before slithering up to me.
"My dear, that was possibly the greatest display of destruction I've ever witnessed! So glad I was actually able to be here this time around. I like Blackjack, I really do. She was loads of fun, but I'd prefer to not die." His smirk morphed to a more contemplative smile. "Still, I wonder if that plucky little security mare will pop up again. It took quite a bit of chance encounters to make her the first time after all."
"I'm sure the timeline will persist regardless. In any case, it's for the best that the new future doesn't resemble the wasteland."
"Oh, no arguments here. I just think it's a shame that pony got such a raw deal, and now she and her friends will just be erased from the universe." Discord shrugged before looking back to the rest of the assembled ponies. "Food for thought Glimmy. Oh, and before you start spiraling about my current O&O alignment or whatever, I'm still chaotic, but I won't dip into the evil corner again. I might even try my paw at the lawful or good segments. Who knows what the future holds? Ya know, except those of us near omniscient beings?"
With a flash, the lord of chaos was gone. In his place was a sticky note on my horn that read: 'left to get milk and smokes, don't wait up for me.' Removing the sticky note, realized I now had several shell-shocked ponies on my hooves, including the... triachs? Was Cadance officially a ruler yet? In any case, I got the feeling they would have some follow up questions.
"Hey Glim-Glam, why is your butt glowing?" Pinkie's question jarred everypony else out of their stupor, and now all eyes were on me.
Looking back at my flanks, sure enough, my cutie mark was flashing. "Huh, I guess that's a mission accomplished." I couldn't help but notice Pinkie slightly deflate.
"Does that mean you're leaving already? I was gonna throw a massive party for all the new ponies in Ponyville and I was hoping you and other you could come because I've never been able to invite two of the same pony to a party, unless they happen to be twins, but even then you're extra special because you're not twins, you're the same pony from different timelines and I know you don't get a lot of appreciation for what you do, and you could hook yourself up with this timeline's Trixie because I was gonna hire her for the party since she's already there but-" interrupting Pinkie the only sure fire way I knew, my hoof made its way to her mouth.
She looked up at me with her puppy-dog eyes, but I just gave her a grateful smile. "I'd love to come, Pinkie. I'm not on any time limit now that the work is done, so I'll be sure to attend."
Removing my hoof from her mouth, she beamed hopefully at me. "Pinkie promise?"
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my e-ow!" I really needed to learn to do that without poking myself, but it seemed to placate Pinkie Pie to the point she gave me a choking, rib cracking hug before zipping off in the direction of Ponyville. That just left... everypony else.
"Yes Twilight, I'm sure the moonstone starmetal reaction couldn't be used to make your magic more powerful, nor would it really work on the princesses. It would just give you cancer, and probably do nothing to a naturally ascended alicorn." While we trotted back along the road taken by the refugees toward Ponyville, Twilight had questioned, interviewed, and interrogated me. Every bit of information she could get from me about what I just did, as well as some pointers on possible future threats were freely given, but now her questions were getting into potentially harmful territory.
"But what if we controlled the reaction, and only let a little react at a time? Then we could sap the heat from the reaction with steam turbines and-"
"I'm gonna stop you right there Twi. While that idea is actually pretty great on the surface, there just isn't enough starmetal on Equis to keep that up for longer than maybe a decade on a large scale. Maybe if i didn't just destroy the biggest source of the stuff, but having seen the alternative, I wasn't about to take any risks. It would be better to focus on switching your dependence on coal over to things like geothermal, solar, hydro-electric or pure magic batteries."
Twilight scrunched up her face."How do you make magic batteries?"
"Oh, you just charge up specially tuned gemstones with raw magic energy. At least that's how they did it in the wasteland." That seemed to get a reaction out of Spike, who perked up on Twilight’s back with keen interest.
"Wait, gems have magic? Is that why they taste so good? Would they taste better if they had more magic? Twilight, we need to test this when we get back home," Spike insisted as he gently nudged Twilight's head.
Twilight's eyes lit up at her little brother taking an interest in science. "That actually sounds like a fun experiment! We can go gem hunting together too, since Rarity taught me her gem finding spell." While they went off on their own little tangent, I turned to Starlight who looked rather pensive.
I gave her a gentle smile. "Bit for your thoughts, other me?"
That seemed to snap her out of her own head. "I was kinda wondering why you didn't fly off with the other princesses or teleport away like Twilight's brother. Also, where did Zecora run off to?"
"Zecora bolted as soon as that big Starlight caught the zebra dude. Said something about not wanting to be cursed more than she already was or something. By the way, what were you up to before your other self came to recruit you Starlight? We never really had the time to talk that much on our mission." Rainbow flew down to hover upside down in Starlight's face with a suspicious glare.
"Oh, uh, well I was, uh kinda…” As my other self kept stuttering and looking to me with pleading eyes, I decided to her rescue.
“She was doing what I was doing at the time. Building a house out in the middle of nowhere to study magic, but I convinced her to come help us save the world. She’s just kinda embarrassed about it because of some personal stuff we don’t need to get into.” Starlight mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ while nopony was looking.
Rainbow gave an ambivalent shrug before going back to flying a dozen hooves over the group. "Hey! I can see my house from here! C'mon we're almost there, time to pick up the pace!"
Pinkie Pie, having popped up while nopony was looking, decided to chime in. "Oh, don't worry Dashie, we'll arrive just in time for the start of the party!"
Starlight did a double take. "Wait, I thought you were already in Ponyville getting the party ready!"
"Yup, that's right!" Pinkie just kept bouncing like a spring encircling our group as we trotted down the road.
Starlight just looked more confused. "But you're here with us. Did you get somepony else to finish setting up?"
"Nopey dopey!" The pink enigma just kept plonking along..
"So are you gonna finish everything after we arrive?"
"What fun would that be silly? Then you'd have to wait around even longer and waiting is boring!"
Starlight's left eye twitched. "So how can you be here while also setting everything up in Ponyville?"
Pinkie stopped bouncing for a moment to just trot backwards in front of Starlight. "Ha ha, please." With that, she was back to her regular springy self.
Starlight looked like she was about to blow up before I draped a wing over her withers. "Trust yourself when I say, it's not worth it. Twilight had to learn the lesson, I had to learn the lesson, just drop it for the sake of your own sanity." Giving my unicorn self a gentle nuzzle, I felt her relax as she returned the gesture.
"Alright. If even my own alicorn self is telling me to drop it, I guess it's for the best... even if it still makes no sense."
"Yeah, that's just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie." Twilight leaned closer to Starlight's other side before whispering in low tones. "Just don't remind her about the laws of physics. She gets really upset, and it just makes everything more confusing."
Keeping my wing around Starlight as we kept trotting, I made sure to keep her distracted until we finally arrived to the sight of hundreds of ponies wearing party hats to greet us.
BOOM
With the blast of the largest party cannon I'd ever seen, a shower of confetti and streamers rained down across the whole town. Entering the town square I noticed a massive banner draped across town hall with 'Thanks for saving our universe Glim Glam' written in purple paint. All around us ponies were cheering and blowing party horns. "Well this is a first."
"I know! Nopony ever thanked you for saving their timeline before, so I'm making up for the other two Pinkie Pies who probably just figured I'd be the Pinkie Pie to throw you an awesome party, but that's still no excuse, especially for that first mission where you actually helped a Pinkie Pie not be a bad Pinkie Pie! She should have at least baked you a-ya know what, never mind that, it's probably for the best I'm the Pinkie to do this because you weren't in the mood for a party the other two times, so enjoy the party!" Before I could get a word in edgewise, the premier party pony was gone.
Might as well enjoy this while you can. I doubt every Pinkie Pie will be able to do something like this. "I know. I'm just glad this mission is finally over. After the party, it's back to my timeline and then like, a week of cuddles, and then just wait for my next mission if it doesn't just start calling me immediately after I get back." Still, I wonder what will become of the future. Might be worth checking out before we leave. "Hmm, good point."
For the rest of the day, I just enjoyed the party, gave myself some sage life advice, helped her hook up with Trixie, and mingled with the rest of the ponies. The princesses even showed up at one point, or they were there the whole time and I just didn’t spot them yet. In any case, I went ahead and gave them a heads up on Sombra Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow. I even gave them some comprehensive instructions on bringing back the Pillars and banishing exorcizing the pony of shadows from Stygian.
Before long, Luna had brought out her moon to light up the night sky, and I bid farewell to my friends. This was a nice break, but it’s almost time to get back to the old grind. “Yeah, but not quite yet. Right now, I’m going to witness the non-wasteland future.”
Footnote: Maximum Level Reached
Author's Note
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